Poster #5 - Psychosocial Deprivation and Working Memory: a Preliminary Investigation of Neural Efficiency – When Less is More

• In Event: Poster Session 13

Abstract

Neuroimaging research reveals core functional and neuroanatomical underpinnings of working memory (WM), a fundamental executive function that underlies cognitive and behavioral development. Current investigations of these brain-behavior relations, however, are often devoid of environmental influences, excluding individual differences associated with context. Specifically, little research has examined how exposure to early life stress (ELS) accounts for variability in brain-behavior relations. We proposed that individual differences in brain-behavior associations may be explained, in part, by differences in neural efficiency - conceptualized as the strength of relation between brain function and behavioral performance during cognitive tasks. Informed by ecological, developmental models and accumulating empirical evidence, the current study aimed to investigate the moderating effect of psychosocial deprivation on the brain-behavior relation during a WM challenge.

A subset of data from the ABCD study were used (N = 7481). Psychosocial deprivation was operationalized as a latent construct comprised of four indicators: lack of parental acceptance, monitoring, family cohesion, and positive school environment. Neural response to a WM challenge was drawn from pre-processed fMRI data acquired during the Emotional N-back task. Bilateral a priori regions of interest (ROIs) were chosen from the Desikan atlas to represent the frontoparietal network (FPN). They included superior frontal and caudal and rostral middle frontal gyri; pars opercularis; and inferior and superior parietal lobules. Brain activation during the 2-Back relative to the 0-Back were modeled across these ROIs as a latent variable of neural response to the WM task. Behavioral performance was indexed by the 2-back accuracy score. Structural equation modeling was used to conduct analyses while adjusting for demographic factors and family level dependencies.

The measurement models of psychosocial deprivation and WM-associated neural responses within the FPN exhibited excellent model fit. All factor loadings were above .43 (p < .001). As expected, children’s neural responses within the FPN were positively associated with their WM behavioral performance (β = .10, p < .001). Further, psychosocial deprivation significantly attenuated the association between neural activations within the FPN and attendant behavioral accuracy (β = -.05, p < .01), suggesting a loss of neural efficiency among children in more deprived rearing environments (Figure 1). A follow-up analysis was conducted to probe neural activation patterns within the FPN at different levels of behavioral accuracy moderated by psychosocial deprivation, which also yielded a significant interaction effect (β = -.04, p < .05). The pattern suggests that children in more deprived environments might increase neural activation intensity within the FPN, or engage brain areas that are not typically activated during a WM challenge, to reach the same level of behavioral performance as those in a more enriched environment (Figure 2). This compensatory process may reflect a neural correlate of resilience among children in a deprived rearing context.

The current study highlights the need to adopt an ecological approach when investigating brain-behavior relations. Additionally, it suggests that prevention and intervention programs that seek to support neurocognitive development among children exposed to psychosocial deprivation may need to increase social and cognitive stimulation in the rearing environment.

Authors

• Zehua Cui, University of Maryland - College Park
  Presenting Author

• Lawrence Sweet, University of Georgia

• Steven M. Kogan, University of Georgia

• Assaf Oshri, University of Georgia