Differential Developmental Associations of Material Hardship and Adolescent Amygdala-Prefrontal Cortex White Matter Connectivity

• In Event: Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Topic - Biological Processes: Neuroscience and Genetics

Abstract

Children who live in impoverished conditions are at an increased risk for adverse outcomes, including behavioral problems and delayed cognitive development (Brooks-Gunn & Duncan, 1997). Extant literature identifies white matter networks as the mechanism that may underlie deleterious effects of poverty (Brito & Noble, 2014; Dufford & Kim, 2017; Kim et al., 2019; Ursache et al., 2016); however, there is a paucity of research examining this association using more precise measures of childhood poverty and white matter tracts between neural structures especially affected by the environment. Moreover, how this relationship may differ as a function of developmental age has not been reported previously. To address this gap in knowledge, we investigated whether developmental timing influences the association between material hardship – a measure of food, housing, and medical insecurity – with white matter connections implicated in emotional processing.

One hundred and sixty-one adolescents (Female =74, Male =87; African American =117, Caucasian =23, Other/Not reported =21) sampled from the longitudinal Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study completed neuroimaging scan at age 15. A data-driven approach identified two developmental groupings of material hardship: early childhood (ages 1, 3, and 5); and late childhood and adolescence (ages 9 and 15). Diffusion neuroimaging data were processed using probabilistic tractography that mapped seed-to-target white matter connectivity between amygdala and select prefrontal regions. Illustrated in Figure 1, the Brodmann’s Area (BA) prefrontal targets were as follows: right dorsomedial BA10 (plum), right orbitofrontal BA11 (blue) and BA47 (yellow), left (red) and right (green) subgenual cingulate cortex (SCC) BA25.

We found developmental timing and regional differences in how material hardship related to amygdala-prefrontal white matter connectivity (Figure 2). First, multiple regression analysis showed that material hardship differentially related to amygdala-SCC depending on when in development hardship was experienced (F(2, 158) = 4.434, p = 0.014, FDR-adjusted p = 0.033, R2 = 0.053, R2adjusted = 0.041). Specifically, greater hardship in early childhood was associated with reduced amygdala-SCC white matter connectivity (B = -0.017, p = 0.004), but greater hardship in late childhood and adolescence was associated with increased connectivity between the same regions (B = 0.011, p = 0.045). Additionally, we also found that greater material hardship during late childhood and adolescence was related to weaker right amygdala-OFC white matter connectivity (B = -0.018, p < 0.001, F(2, 158) = 6.207, p = 0.002, FDR-adjusted p = 0.013, R2 = 0.073, R2adjusted = 0.061). These associations remained significant after the models were adjusted for individual, family-level, and stress-related covariates and their p-values corrected for multiple comparisons. These findings provide evidence for developmental timing to be an important consideration for the association between poverty and white matter connectivity. Furthermore, our results provide specificity in white matter connections implicated in emotional processing as a function of age-specific hardship experience.

Authors

• Felicia Hardi, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  Presenting Author

• Leigh Goetschius, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author

• Melissa K Peckins, St. John's University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jaime Alejandro Munoz-Velazquez, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sara McLanahan, Princeton University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Columbia University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nestor Lopez-Duran, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author

• Colter Mitchell, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  Non-Presenting Author

• Luke W. Hyde, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  Non-Presenting Author

• Christopher S Monk, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author