Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 43 Vassar St Room 46-4033, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA; Department of Psychology, University of Pennsylvania, Levin Building 425 S. University Ave, Room 354, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA.
Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences and McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 43 Vassar St Room 46-4033, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA; Division of Medical Sciences, Harvard University, 260 Longwood Ave, T-MEC 435, Boston, MA, 02155, USA.
Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2019 Apr;36:100641. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2019.100641. Epub 2019 Mar 23.
Although lower socioeconomic status (SES) is generally negatively associated with performance on cognitive assessments, some children from lower-SES backgrounds perform as well as their peers from higher-SES backgrounds. Yet little research has examined whether the neural correlates of individual differences in cognition vary by SES. The current study explored whether relationships between cortical structure and fluid reasoning differ by SES in development. Fluid reasoning, a non-verbal component of IQ, is supported by a distributed frontoparietal network, with evidence for a specific role of rostrolateral prefrontal cortex (RLPFC). In a sample of 115 4-7-year old children, bilateral thickness of RLPFC differentially related to reasoning by SES: thicker bilateral RLPFC positively correlated with reasoning ability in children from lower-SES backgrounds, but not in children from higher-SES backgrounds. Similar results were found in an independent sample of 59 12-16-year old adolescents. Furthermore, young children from lower-SES backgrounds with strong reasoning skills were the only group to show a positive relationship between RLPFC thickness and age. In sum, we found that relationships between cortical thickness and cognition differ by SES during development.
尽管较低的社会经济地位（SES）通常与认知评估的表现呈负相关，但一些来自低 SES 背景的儿童的表现与来自高 SES 背景的同龄人一样好。然而，很少有研究探讨认知个体差异的神经相关性是否因 SES 而异。本研究探讨了在发展过程中，皮质结构和流体推理之间的关系是否因 SES 而异。流体推理是智商的一种非言语成分，由分布式额顶网络支持，并有证据表明额外侧前额叶皮层（RLPFC）具有特定作用。在 115 名 4-7 岁儿童的样本中，RLPFC 的双侧厚度与 SES 推理呈不同的关系：在来自低 SES 背景的儿童中，双侧 RLPFC 越厚，与推理能力的相关性越强，但在来自高 SES 背景的儿童中则没有。在 59 名 12-16 岁青少年的独立样本中也发现了类似的结果。此外，具有较强推理能力的来自低 SES 背景的幼儿是唯一一组显示 RLPFC 厚度与年龄呈正相关的群体。总之，我们发现皮质厚度与认知之间的关系在发展过程中因 SES 而异。
