Neighborhood Safety, Parental Adjustment, & Frontal-Amygdalar Functional Connectivity Among Youth

• In Event: The effect of family and community stress on youth executive functioning and psychopathology

Abstract

Background: Early life stress is a salient and lifelong contributor to the development of functional connectivity between neural structures and networks (Davidson & McEwen, 2012). Functional connectivity during the brain’s resting state (RS-FC) is a strong indicator of individual brain functioning outside of task demands and symptoms proxy of normative brain development (Damosiseaux & Greicus, 2009). Strong RS-FC between the frontoparietal network and the amygdala has been implicated as a promotive factor for self-regulation stress, such that changes in frontal activation moderates amygdalar responses. Early life stress has been shown to decrease RS-FC between fronto-parietal regions and the amygdala. Accordingly, fronto-amygdalar RS-FC has been reported to mediate the relationship between early life stress and later maladaptive outcomes, such as anxiety (Kim & Whalen, 2009) or externalizing behavior (Wager et al., 2009).
Recent investigations into specific forms of adversity have revealed the neighborhood environment to be an influential determinant of self-regulation and cognitive control (Moore et al., 2009). Low neighborhood safety, specifically, is a prominent stressor throughout the lifespan and contributes to maladaptive outcomes in not only youth, but parents as well (McCoy et al., 2016). Indeed, connections between neighborhood safety and parenting stress have been established, indicating that high neighborhood crime leads to increased psychological distress among parents, including anxiety and depressive symptoms (Franco, Pottick, & Huang, 2010). However, the role of parenting behaviors in the link between neighborhood safety and neural mechanisms of self-regulation in youth is understudied.
Objective: The present study investigated the indirect effect of neighborhood safety and crime on youth fronto-amygdalar RS-FC via parent anxiety/depression symptoms.
Methods: Using the first data release of the Adolescent Brain & Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, we cross-sectionally investigated the link between neighborhood safety, parent anxiety/depression, and youth fronto-amygdalar functional connectivity a diverse sample of pre-adolescents (Mage = 9.92, N = 9,419).
Results: Across two distinct reports of neighborhood safety (total crime reports from the U.S. Census and parent perception of neighborhood safety), increased incidence of crime and parent perception of lower safety were significantly associated with parent anxiety/depressive symptoms (respectively, t = -3.59, p <.001; t = -5.91, p <.001). Parent anxiety/depression significantly mediated the link between neighborhood safety and youth RS-FC, such that increased parent anxiety/depression was associated with lower RS-FC in youth (t = -2.29, p < .05). Moreover, we found a significant direct association between parent perception of neighborhood safety and youth RS-FC (t = 3.19, p <.001), but not between census crime reports and youth RS-FC.
Conclusions: These findings indicate that although the neighborhood context is indeed a salient contributor to youth neural development of self-regulation, parenting behaviors act as an effective mechanism through which contextual risk within the community is transmitted to youth neural development and consequent self-regulation.

Group Authors

Landry Goodgame Huffman, B.S1., Sihong Liu, M.S2., Assaf Oshri, Ph.D1,2.
1. Neuroscience Program, University of Georgia, Athens, USA
2. Human Development and Family Science, University of Georgia, Athens, USA
This study was partially supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA (5K01DA045219-02; PI Oshri)

Authors

• Sihong Liu, Stanford University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Assaf Oshri, University of Georgia
  Non-Presenting Author

• Landry Goodgame Huffman, University of Georgia
  Presenting Author