An examination of childhood neighborhood violence exposure and mother-child closeness on adolescent wellbeing and frontostriatal white matter connectivity

• In Event: Biological embedding of early adversity: new insights on the effects on neurodevelopment and threat processing

Abstract

More than half of all U.S. adolescents experience neighborhood violence. Exposure to neighborhood violence (ENV) is linked to psychopathology and impairment in functioning, possibly due to effects on brain structures. Although protective factors, such as support from caregivers, buffer against ENV, few studies have examined how caregiver-child closeness mitigates the impact of ENV on structural brain development. Frontostriatal circuit, which include ventral striatum (VS) and prefrontal cortex (PFC), support reward-seeking, motivation, and emotional-processing. Since, VS is associated with psychopathology outcomes as well as responsive to prosocial stimuli, it is possible that VS may be affected by both ENV and caregiver support. Hence, we are interested in exploring how co-occurrence of adversity and protective factors impact the adolescent wellbeing and brain structure. We investigated the contributions of childhood ENV and mother-child closeness on adolescent psychopathology, positive functioning, and ventral striatum and prefrontal cortex (VS-PFC) white matter connectivity. Furthermore, we examined whether the mother-child perceived closeness moderates the effects of ENV on VS-PFC connectivity.
Longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (FFCWS; N=3246, 48% female, 18% white, 50% African-American, 25% Hispanic) and its subsample, the Study of Adolescent Neural Development (SAND; N=196, 52% female, 13% white, 76% African-American), were used for the analyses. Participants were recruited at birth and followed up at 1,3, 5, 9, and 15. We assessed childhood ENV (mother self-report from child's ages 3, 5, and 9), mother-child perceived closeness (child self-report at age 9), psychopathology (latent variables of adolescent self-report of internalizing and externalizing symptoms), and positive function (latent variables of connectedness, optimism, happiness, and perseverance via EPOCH Measure of Adolescent Well-Being) at age 15. We used diffusion MRI data (age 15) to measure white matter connectivity between the VS and the PFC regions (Brodmann's Areas [BA] 10, 11, 13, 24, 25, 32, 47) with probabilistic tractography.
Analyses of FFCWS showed that childhood ENV was related to adolescent wellbeing. ENV was associated with higher internalizing (b=0.071, p=0.0003) and externalizing (b=0.172, p<0.0001) symptoms but had no effect on positive function. Mother-child closeness was a promotive factor for adolescent wellbeing with higher perceived closeness linked to lower internalizing (b=-0.084, p<0.0001) and externalizing (b=-0.049, p=0.00008) symptoms and higher positive function (b= 0.085, p<0.0001) in adolescence. Perceived closeness did not moderate the relationship.
When examining frontostriatal white matter connectivity, mother-child closeness moderated the relation between childhood ENV and right VS–medial PFC (BA11) connectivity (b=-0.014, p=0.003) in adolescence. Specifically, neighborhood violence was positively associated with VS-mPFC connectivity only among adolescents who reported with low perceived closeness (2 on a scale of 1-6, b=0.03, p=0.016). For adolescents who reported high perceived closeness, there was no effect of ENV on frontostriatal connectivity (5, b=-0.01, p=0.264) (Figure 1). There were no main effects of either neighborhood violence or perceived closeness on VS-PFC white matter.
Mother-child closeness may buffer the effects of neighborhood violence on adolescent VS-medial PFC white matter connectivity. Follow up study will elucidate what increased PFC-VS mean in terms of predicting participants wellbeing as we continue follow them into adulthood.

Authors

• Sunghyun Hong, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  Presenting Author

• Leigh Goetschius, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author

• Arianna Gard, University of Maryland - College Park
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tyler C. Hein, University of Michigan
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kathryn Maguire-Jack, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  Non-Presenting Author

• Vonnie C McLoyd, University of Michigan - Ann Arbor
  Non-Presenting Author

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

• Sara McLanahan, Princeton University
  Non-Presenting Author

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

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

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

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