Department of Psychology, University of Washington, United States.
Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, United States.
Neuroimage. 2018 Jun;173:298-310. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2018.02.043. Epub 2018 Feb 25.
Growing evidence suggests that childhood socioeconomic status (SES) influences neural development, which may contribute to the well-documented SES-related disparities in academic achievement. However, the particular aspects of SES that impact neural structure and function are not well understood. Here, we investigate associations of childhood SES and a potential mechanism-degree of cognitive stimulation in the home environment-with cortical structure, white matter microstructure, and neural function during a working memory (WM) task across development. Analyses included 53 youths (age 6-19 years). Higher SES as reflected in the income-to-needs ratio was associated with higher parent-reported achievement, WM performance, and cognitive stimulation in the home environment. Although SES was not significantly associated with cortical thickness, children raised in more cognitively stimulating environments had thicker cortex in the frontoparietal network and cognitive stimulation mediated the assocation between SES and cortical thickness in the frontoparietal network. Higher family SES was associated with white matter microstructure and neural activation in the frontoparietal network during a WM task, including greater fractional anisotropy (FA) in the right and left superior longitudinal fasciculi (SLF), and greater BOLD activation in multiple regions of the prefrontal cortex during WM encoding and maintenance. Greater FA and activation in these regions was associated higher parent-reported achievement. Together, cognitive stimulation, WM performance, FA in the SLF, and prefrontal activation during WM encoding and maintenance significantly mediated the association between SES and parent-reported achievement. These findings highlight potential neural, cognitive, and environmental mechanisms linking SES with academic achievement and suggest that enhancing cognitive stimulation in the home environment might be one effective strategy for reducing SES-related disparities in academic outcomes.
越来越多的证据表明，儿童的社会经济地位（SES）会影响神经发育，这可能是导致学业成就与 SES 相关的众所周知的差异的原因。然而，影响神经结构和功能的 SES 的特定方面还不是很清楚。在这里，我们研究了童年 SES 以及家庭环境中认知刺激的程度——这是一个潜在的机制——与皮质结构、白质微观结构和工作记忆（WM）任务期间的神经功能之间的关联，这些关联在整个发展过程中都存在。分析包括 53 名青少年（年龄 6-19 岁）。收入与需求比反映的 SES 较高与父母报告的较高学业成绩、WM 表现和家庭环境中的认知刺激有关。尽管 SES 与皮质厚度没有显著相关，但在认知刺激程度较高的环境中长大的儿童，其额顶网络的皮质较厚，认知刺激在 SES 与额顶网络皮质厚度之间的关联中起中介作用。家庭 SES 较高与工作记忆任务中额顶网络的白质微观结构和神经激活有关，包括右侧和左侧上纵束（SLF）的分数各向异性（FA）较高，以及前额皮质多个区域在 WM 编码和维持期间的 BOLD 激活增加。这些区域的 FA 和激活越高，父母报告的成绩就越高。总的来说，认知刺激、WM 表现、SLF 中的 FA 和 WM 编码和维持期间的前额叶激活，显著介导了 SES 与父母报告的学业成绩之间的关联。这些发现强调了潜在的神经、认知和环境机制，将 SES 与学业成绩联系起来，并表明在家庭环境中增强认知刺激可能是减少 SES 相关学业成绩差异的有效策略。
