Longitudinal effects of early socioeconomic circumstance on infants' and children's brain and neurocognitive functions

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

A growing body of research suggests early socioeconomic circumstance (SC) is a robust
predictor of later cognitive and socioemotional development. However, the neural and cognitive
pathways by which of early SC shapes these outcomes are poorly understood. To truly
understand the mechanisms by which SC impacts neurocognitive development, studies must
extend beyond western, middle- and high-income samples and instead work with diverse and
global populations. Furthermore, investigations need to focus on early development when neural
and cognitive systems are developing most rapidly. This symposium encompasses four papers
focusing on populations experiencing low SC. Each paper leverages cutting-edge methods to
examine how SC impacts infants and children’s brain and neurocognitive functions.

The first paper demonstrates how stress may be a pathway by which poverty influences
brain activity during infancy in a diverse, low-income sample. The second paper shows how SC
influences the development of attentional control from infancy to toddlerhood in a Spanish
sample. The third paper examines relations between early environmental risk factors and resting
brain activity during infancy in a birth cohort in resource-poor communities in South Africa.
Finally, the fourth paper, investigates if brain activity during an inhibitory control task mediates
the relation between prenatal SC and psychopathology in childhood in a large sample of children
from South Dakota.

Using a diverse, global framework, these papers highlight how SC shapes children’s
neurodevelopment. Each paper will discuss the implications of their findings for understanding
how early experiences influence children’s neurodevelopment, and highlight future avenues for
research and policy.

Sub Unit

• Biological Processes: Psychophysiology

Chairs

• Sonya V. Troller-Renfree, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Santiago Morales, University of Southern California

Individual Presentations

• Associations between maternal stress and infant brain activity in a low-income sample - Presenting Author: Sonya V. Troller-Renfree, Teachers College, Columbia University; Emma Rose Hart, Teachers College, Columbia University; Jessica Sperber, Columbia University; Lisa Gennetian, Duke University; Hirokazu Yoshikawa, New York University; Nathan A Fox, University of Maryland - College Park; Kimberly G Noble, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Contribution of household socioeconomic environment to the early development of attention control - Presenting Author: Sebastián Moyano; Alana Daly, Universidad de Granada; Josué Rico-Picó; Angela Conejero, Universidad de Granada; MÁngeles Ballesteros-Duperon; M. Rosario Rueda

• Head Circumference at Birth and Gender Predict EEG Relative Power in Resource-Poor Communities in South Africa - Presenting Author: Diana Carolina Lopera-Pérez, Boston University; Peter Rockers, Boston University; Jukka Leppänen; Denise Evans; Lezanie Coetzee; Laurel J. Gabard-Durnam, Northeastern University; Amanda R Tarullo, Boston University

• Electrophysiological Correlates of Inhibitory Control in Children: Relations with Early Risk Factors and Child Psychopathology - Presenting Author: Xiaoye Xu, University of Southern California; Maureen Bowers, University of Maryland - College Park; Stephanie Christina Leach, University of Maryland - College Park; Marco McSweeney, University of Maryland - College Park; Lydia Yoder; George A Buzzell, Florida International University; William P Fifer, Columbia University; Amy Elliott, Avera Health; Nathan A Fox, University of Maryland - College Park; Santiago Morales, University of Southern California