Associations between cortical thickness and reasoning differ by socioeconomic status in development.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Leonard JA
PROVIDER: S-EPMC6969225 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Recent findings indicate robust associations between socioeconomic status (SES) and brain structure in children, raising questions about the ways in which SES may modify structural brain development. In general, cortical thickness and surface area develop in nonlinear patterns across childhood and adolescence, with developmental patterns varying to some degree by cortical region. Here, we examined whether age-related nonlinear changes in cortical thickness and surface area varied by SES, as indexed by family income and parental education. We hypothesized that SES disparities in age-related change may be particularly evident for language- and literacy-supporting cortical regions. Participants were 1148 typically-developing individuals between 3 and 20 years of age. Results indicated that SES factors moderate patterns of age-associated change in cortical thickness but not surface area. Specifically, at lower levels of SES, associations between age and cortical thickness were curvilinear, with relatively steep age-related decreases in cortical thickness earlier in childhood, and subsequent leveling off during adolescence. In contrast, at high levels of SES, associations between age and cortical thickness were linear, with consistent reductions across the age range studied. Notably, this interaction was prominent in the left fusiform gyrus, a region that is critical for reading development. In a similar pattern, SES factors significantly moderated linear age-related change in left superior temporal gyrus, such that higher SES was linked with steeper age-related decreases in cortical thickness in this region. These findings suggest that SES may moderate patterns of age-related cortical thinning, especially in language- and literacy-supporting cortical regions.
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Project description:Working memory (WM) supports several higher-level cognitive abilities, yet we know less about factors associated with development and decline in WM compared to other cognitive processes. Here, we investigated lifespan changes in WM capacity and their structural brain correlates, using a longitudinal sample including 2358 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans and WM scores from 1656 participants (4.4-86.4 years, mean follow-up interval 4.3 years). 8764 participants (9.0-10.9 years) with MRI, WM scores and genetic information from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study were used for follow-up analyses. Results showed that both the information manipulation component and the storage component of WM improved during childhood and adolescence, but the age-decline could be fully explained by reductions in passive storage capacity alone. Greater WM function in development was related to apparent thinner cortex in both samples, also when general cognitive function was accounted for. The same WM-apparent thickness relationship was found for young adults. The WM-thickness relationships could not be explained by SNP-based co-heritability or by socioeconomic status. A larger sample with genetic information may be necessary to disentangle the true gene-environment effects. In conclusion, WM capacity changes greatly through life and has anatomically extended rather than function-specific structural cortical correlates.
| S-EPMC8371229 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Childhood socioeconomic status (SES) impacts cognitive development and mental health, but its association with human structural brain development is not yet well characterized. Here, we analyzed 1243 longitudinally acquired structural MRI scans from 623 youth (299 female/324 male) to investigate the relation between SES and cortical and subcortical morphology between ages 5 and 25 years. We found positive associations between SES and total volumes of the brain, cortical sheet, and four separate subcortical structures. These associations were stable between ages 5 and 25. Surface-based shape analysis revealed that higher SES is associated with areal expansion of lateral prefrontal, anterior cingulate, lateral temporal, and superior parietal cortices and ventrolateral thalamic, and medial amygdalo-hippocampal subregions. Meta-analyses of functional imaging data indicate that cortical correlates of SES are centered on brain systems subserving sensorimotor functions, language, memory, and emotional processing. We further show that anatomical variation within a subset of these cortical regions partially mediates the positive association between SES and IQ. Finally, we identify neuroanatomical correlates of SES that exist above and beyond accompanying variation in IQ. Although SES is clearly a complex construct that likely relates to development through diverse, nondeterministic processes, our findings elucidate potential neuroanatomical mediators of the association between SES and cognitive outcomes.SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT Childhood socioeconomic status (SES) has been associated with developmental disparities in mental health, cognitive ability, and academic achievement, but efforts to understand underlying SES-brain relationships are ongoing. Here, we leverage a unique developmental neuroimaging dataset to longitudinally map the associations between SES and regional brain anatomy at high spatiotemporal resolution. We find widespread associations between SES and global cortical and subcortical volumes and surface area and localize these correlations to a distributed set of cortical, thalamic, and amygdalo-hippocampal subregions. Anatomical variation within a subset of these regions partially mediates the positive relationship between SES and IQ. Our findings help to localize cortical and subcortical systems that represent candidate biological substrates for the known relationships between SES and cognition.
| S-EPMC6381251 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundMental and physical health are affected by family and neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES). Accelerated maturation in the context of lower SES is one mechanism that might contribute to underlying health disparities; few studies, however, have considered neighborhood SES in relation to putative markers of brain maturation in adolescents.MethodsIn 120 adolescents 13 to 18 years of age, we examined family and neighborhood SES in relation to cortical thickness adjusted for age. We also examined whether cortical thickness was related to depressive symptoms and explored regions of interest.ResultsControlling for age, neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage was associated with a thinner cortex in the left hemisphere (standardized β = -0.20), which was related to more severe depressive symptoms (standardized β = -0.33). Family SES was not significantly associated with age-adjusted mean cortical thickness in either hemisphere after controlling for relevant covariates. In exploratory, covariate-adjusted analyses of cortical thickness at the regional level, neighborhood socioeconomic disadvantage was associated with reduced cortical thickness in the left superior frontal gyrus (standardized β = -0.27), fusiform gyrus (standardized β = -0.20), and insula (standardized β = -0.21), whereas family SES was positively associated with cortical thickness in the right lateral and right medial orbitofrontal cortex (standardized β = 0.21 and standardized β = 0.19, respectively) and left transverse temporal gyrus (standardized β = 0.22).ConclusionsOur findings provide evidence for a social gradient of cortical thickness during adolescence. Adolescents living in less advantaged community or family contexts appear to have a thinner cortex according to global and regional measures. Reduced cortical thickness in the left hemisphere may indicate increased risk for depression in adolescence.
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Project description:The neural correlates of human personality have been of longstanding interest; however, most studies in the field have relied on modest sample sizes and few replicable results have been reported to date. We investigated relationships between personality and brain gray matter in a sample of generally healthy, older (mean age 73 years) adults from Scotland drawn from the Lothian Birth Cohort 1936. Participants (N = 578) completed a brain MRI scan and self-reported Big Five personality trait measures. Conscientiousness trait scores were positively related to brain cortical thickness in a range of regions, including bilateral parahippocampal gyrus, bilateral fusiform gyrus, left cingulate gyrus, right medial orbitofrontal cortex, and left dorsomedial prefrontal cortex. These associations - most notably in frontal regions - were modestly-to-moderately attenuated by the inclusion of biomarker variables assessing allostatic load and smoking status. None of the other personality traits showed robust associations with brain cortical thickness, nor did we observe any personality trait associations with cortical surface area and gray matter volume. These findings indicate that brain cortical thickness is associated with conscientiousness, perhaps partly accounted for by allostatic load and smoking status.
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Project description:ObjectiveTo examine the cross-sectional associations between regional tau, β-amyloid (Aβ), and cortical thickness and neuropsychological function across the preclinical and clinical spectrum of Alzheimer disease (AD).MethodsWe included 106 participants from the Swedish Biomarkers for Identifying Neurodegenerative Disorders Early and Reliably (BioFINDER) study, of whom 33 had preclinical AD (Aβ-positive cognitively normal individuals), 25 had prodromal AD (Aβ-positive mild cognitive impairment), and 48 had probable AD dementia. All underwent [18F]flortaucipir (tau) and structural MRI (cortical thickness), and 88 of 106 underwent [18F]flutemetamol (Aβ) PET. Linear regression models adjusted for age, sex, and education were performed to examine associations between 7 regions of interest and 7 neuropsychological tests for all 3 imaging modalities.ResultsIn preclinical AD, [18F]flortaucipir, but not [18F]flutemetamol or cortical thickness, was associated with decreased global cognition, memory, and processing speed (range standardized β = 0.35-0.52, p < 0.05 uncorrected for multiple comparisons). In the combined prodromal AD and AD dementia group, both increased [18F]flortaucipir uptake and reduced cortical thickness were associated with worse performance on a variety of neuropsychological tests (most regions of interest survived correction for multiple comparisons at p < 0.05), while increased [18F]flutemetamol uptake was specifically associated with lower scores on a delayed recall memory task (p < 0.05 uncorrected for multiple comparisons). The strongest effects for both [18F]flortaucipir and cortical thickness on cognition were found in the lateral and medial parietal cortex and lateral temporal cortex. The effect of [18F]flutemetamol on cognition was generally weaker and less region specific.ConclusionOur findings suggest that tau PET is more sensitive than Aβ PET and measures of cortical thickness for detecting early cognitive changes in preclinical AD. Furthermore, both [18F]flortaucipir PET and cortical thickness show strong cognitive correlates at the clinical stages of AD.
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Project description:The human cerebral cortex undergoes considerable changes during development, with cortical maturation patterns reflecting regional heterogeneity that generally progresses in a posterior-to-anterior fashion. However, the organizing principles that govern cortical development remain unclear. In the current study, we characterized age-related differences in cortical thickness (CT) as a function of sex, pubertal timing, and two dissociable indices of socioeconomic status (i.e., income-to-needs and maternal education) in the context of functional brain network organization, using a cross-sectional sample (n = 789) diverse in race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status from the Lifespan Human Connectome Project in Development (HCP-D). We found that CT generally followed a linear decline from 5 to 21 years of age, except for three functional networks that displayed nonlinear trajectories. We found no main effect of sex or age by sex interaction for any network. Earlier pubertal timing was associated with reduced mean CT and CT in seven networks. We also found a significant age by maternal education interaction for mean CT across cortex and CT in the dorsal attention network, where higher levels of maternal education were associated with steeper age-related decreases in CT. Taken together, our results suggest that these biological and environmental variations may impact the emerging functional connectome.
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