Adaptation, not deficit: Contextual and environmental influences of SES on neurodevelopment and self-regulation

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

Burgeoning research at the intersections of development and psychobiology has advanced our understanding of the potentially deleterious impacts of childhood poverty. In so doing, however, the field has often inadvertently adopted a deficit model, prompting recent calls for a move towards understanding how children adapt to heterogenous environmental demands present in the context of poverty. In this symposium, we examine the role of several poverty-relevant contextual factors implicated in self-regulation and neurobiological development. Starting in infancy, the first paper discusses how chronic parent stress influences early neural markers of infant regulation across the socioeconomic spectrum. Moving into childhood, the second paper examines the buffering role of parasympathetic activity on child health outcomes, followed by a paper that discusses brain-behavior cognitive adaptations among youth experiencing a variety of environmental constraints. The final paper examines how the dose and timing of poverty-related adversity and resources calibrates stress physiology systems in early adolescence. Embedded throughout the talks are a variety of methods (adrenocortical, autonomic, EEG, MRI) and statistical approaches (causal inference models, machine learning) that strengthen the scientific and social impacts of the findings. A new generation of interdisciplinary researchers across diverse institutions offer a unique perspective to addressing socially relevant questions with implications for policy that support today’s youth. The collective insights gleaned will generate meaningful discussion to inspire future research aimed at elucidating the neurodevelopmental processes of adaptation in the context of economic hardship.

Sub Unit

• Biological Processes: Psychophysiology

Chair

• Meriah L. DeJoseph, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities

Individual Presentations

• Parent cortisol and the neural underpinnings of attention and emotion regulation in infancy - Presenting Author: Annie Brandes-Aitken, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Stephen Braren, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Ashley Greaves, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Karina Kozak, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Natalie Hiromi Brito, New York University

• High respiratory sinus arrhythmia: A physiological marker of resilience against health problems associated with low socioeconomic status - Presenting Author: Nicholas Alen, University of California - Davis; Non-Presenting Author: LillyBelle Ku'ulei Deer, University of Denver; Non-Presenting Author: Anna Parenteau, University of California - Davis; Non-Presenting Author: Camelia E Hostinar, University of California - Davis

• What is an adaptive pattern of brain activity? It depends on one’s environment - Presenting Author: Monica E Ellwood-Lowe, University of California - Berkeley; Non-Presenting Author: Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli, Northeastern University; Non-Presenting Author: Silvia Bunge, University of California - Berkeley

• Chronicity and timing of poverty-related exposures on child stress responsivity: A causal inference approach for examining biological embedding of experience - Presenting Author: Meriah L. DeJoseph, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities; Non-Presenting Author: Isabella Chask'a Stallworthy, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities; Non-Presenting Author: Eric Daniel Finegood, Northwestern University; Non-Presenting Author: Cybele Raver, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Clancy Blair, New York University; Non-Presenting Author: Daniel Berry, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities