Department of Psychological Sciences, University of California Merced, Merced, California, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2024 Aug 20;19(8):e0307406. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0307406. eCollection 2024.
A large body of research has linked childhood family socioeconomic status (SES) to neurodevelopment in childhood and adolescence. However, it remains unclear to what extent childhood family SES relates to brain functioning in adulthood. To address this gap, the present study investigated the associations between retrospective accounts of objective and subjective childhood family SES and two well-established electrophysiological indices of brain functioning in adulthood-the MMN and P3b event-related potentials (ERP) components, as neural correlates of automatic change detection and cognitive control respectively. Higher objective childhood family SES, as proxied by parent educational attainment in childhood, was associated with larger (more positive) P3b amplitudes in adulthood. In contrast, there was no association between childhood parent educational attainment and the magnitude of MMN. Adult reports of subjective family SES during childhood were not related to the magnitude of MMN or P3b. These findings suggest that the links between childhood parent educational attainment and brain functioning may extend into adulthood, especially for brain functions supporting cognitive control. These results also imply that, when using retrospective accounts of childhood family SES, objective and subjective reports likely proxy different childhood experiences that have distinct links with specific neurodevelopmental outcomes, and that some of these links may not persist into adulthood. Our findings lay the groundwork for future investigations on how and why childhood family SES relates to brain functioning in adulthood.
大量研究将儿童时期家庭社会经济地位（SES）与儿童和青少年时期的神经发育联系起来。然而，儿童时期家庭 SES 与成年期大脑功能之间的关系程度仍不清楚。为了解决这一差距，本研究调查了客观和主观儿童时期家庭 SES 与两种成熟的成年期脑功能电生理指标之间的关联——MMN 和 P3b 事件相关电位（ERP）成分，分别作为自动变化检测和认知控制的神经相关物。儿童时期父母受教育程度作为客观 SES 的代表，与成年期更大（更积极）的 P3b 振幅相关。相比之下，儿童时期父母受教育程度与 MMN 的幅度之间没有关联。成年后对儿童时期主观家庭 SES 的报告与 MMN 或 P3b 的幅度无关。这些发现表明，儿童时期父母受教育程度与大脑功能之间的联系可能会延伸到成年期，尤其是对支持认知控制的大脑功能。这些结果还表明，当使用儿童时期家庭 SES 的回顾性报告时，客观和主观报告可能代表不同的童年经历，这些经历与特定的神经发育结果有不同的联系，其中一些联系可能不会持续到成年期。我们的发现为未来研究儿童时期家庭 SES 如何以及为何与成年期大脑功能相关奠定了基础。
