Department of Psychiatry, Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, The University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health, Carlton, Victoria, Australia.
Department of Psychiatry, Melbourne Neuropsychiatry Centre, The University of Melbourne and Melbourne Health, Carlton, Victoria, Australia.
Biol Psychiatry Cogn Neurosci Neuroimaging. 2021 Sep;6(9):877-886. doi: 10.1016/j.bpsc.2021.03.008. Epub 2021 Mar 23.
Neighborhood disadvantage has consistently been associated with mental health and cognitive function, in addition to alterations in brain function and connectivity. However, positive environmental influences may buffer these effects. The aim of this study was to examine the association between neighborhood disadvantage and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC), the moderating role of positive parenting and school environment, and relationships between disadvantage-associated rsFC patterns and mental health and cognition.
In this preregistered study, we tested this hypothesis in a large sample of 7618 children (aged 9-10 years) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. Specifically, we analyzed the relationship between neighborhood disadvantage and system-level FC. We also tested whether positive family and school environmental factors and sex moderated effects. Finally, we investigated multivariate relationships between disadvantage-associated rsFC patterns and cognition and mental health.
Disadvantage was associated with widespread alterations in FC across both higher-order (e.g., default mode network and dorsal attention network) and sensorimotor functional systems, some of which were moderated by positive environments. Implicated connections showed multivariate associations with behavior, whereby disadvantage-associated rsFC was generally associated with worse cognition and mental health. Disadvantage-associated connections also predicted variation in cognitive scores using machine learning models.
Our findings shed light on potential mechanisms (i.e., alteration of neural circuitry) through which neighborhood disadvantage may affect youth cognition and mental well-being. This work highlights the importance of positive family and school environments in mitigating some of these effects.
除了改变大脑功能和连接外，邻里劣势一直与心理健康和认知功能有关。然而，积极的环境影响可能会缓冲这些影响。本研究旨在探讨邻里劣势与静息态功能连接（rsFC）之间的关系，积极的养育和学校环境的调节作用，以及与劣势相关的 rsFC 模式与心理健康和认知之间的关系。
在这项预先注册的研究中，我们在来自青少年大脑认知发展（ABCD）研究的 7618 名儿童（9-10 岁）的大样本中测试了这一假设。具体来说，我们分析了邻里劣势与系统水平 FC 之间的关系。我们还测试了积极的家庭和学校环境因素以及性别是否调节了这些影响。最后，我们调查了与劣势相关的 rsFC 模式与认知和心理健康之间的多变量关系。
劣势与 FC 的广泛改变有关，包括更高阶（例如，默认模式网络和背侧注意网络）和感觉运动功能系统，其中一些受到积极环境的调节。涉及到的连接与行为有多元关联，即与劣势相关的 rsFC 通常与较差的认知和心理健康有关。使用机器学习模型，与劣势相关的连接还可以预测认知分数的变化。
我们的发现揭示了邻里劣势可能影响青少年认知和心理健康的潜在机制（即神经回路的改变）。这项工作强调了积极的家庭和学校环境在减轻这些影响方面的重要性。
