Max Planck University College London Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, University College London, London, UK.
Max Planck University College London Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2020 Aug 15;41(12):3392-3402. doi: 10.1002/hbm.25024. Epub 2020 May 20.
Socio-economic disadvantage increases exposure to life stressors. Animal research suggests early life stressors impact later neurodevelopment, including myelin developmental growth. To determine how early life disadvantage may affect myelin growth in adolescence and young adulthood, we analysed data from an accelerated longitudinal neuroimaging study measuring magnetisation transfer (MT), a myelin-sensitive marker, in 288 participants (149 female) between 14 and 25 years of age at baseline. We found that early life economic disadvantage before age 12, measured by a neighbourhood poverty index, was associated with slower myelin growth. This association was observed for magnetization transfer in cortical, subcortical and core white matter regions, and also in key subcortical nuclei. Participant IQ at baseline, alcohol use, body mass index, parental occupation and self-reported parenting quality did not account for these effects, but parental education did so partially. Specifically, positive parenting moderated the effect of socio-economic disadvantage in a protective manner. Thus, early socioeconomic disadvantage appears to alter myelin growth across adolescence. This finding has potential translational implications, including clarifying whether reducing socio-economic disadvantage during childhood, and increasing parental education and positive parenting, promote normal trajectories of brain development in economically disadvantaged contexts.
社会经济劣势会增加生活压力源的暴露。动物研究表明，早期生活压力源会影响后期的神经发育，包括髓鞘的发育生长。为了确定早期生活劣势如何影响青春期和成年早期的髓鞘生长，我们分析了一项加速纵向神经影像学研究的数据，该研究测量了 288 名参与者（149 名女性）在基线时 14 至 25 岁之间的磁化传递（MT），这是一种髓鞘敏感标志物。我们发现，12 岁之前的邻里贫困指数衡量的早期生活经济劣势与髓鞘生长速度较慢有关。这种关联在皮质、皮质下和核心白质区域以及关键的皮质下核中都有观察到。基线时的参与者智商、饮酒、体重指数、父母职业和自我报告的父母教养质量并不能解释这些影响，但父母的教育部分解释了这些影响。具体来说，积极的教养以保护的方式调节了社会经济劣势的影响。因此，早期的社会经济劣势似乎会改变整个青春期的髓鞘生长。这一发现具有潜在的转化意义，包括明确在儿童时期减少社会经济劣势，以及增加父母教育和积极的教养，是否能促进经济劣势环境中大脑发育的正常轨迹。
