Longitudinal Trajectories of Poverty and Adverse Life Events: Links to Adolescent Reward Responding

• In Event: 3-168 - Untangling the Complex Relations Between Early-life Adversity and Stress: Insights From Physiology and Longitudinal Modeling

Integrative Statement

Background: There is a burgeoning research base linking childhood psychosocial adversity and poverty to worse physical and mental health later in life. Yet, relatively little work has focused on neural indices that may help to clarify these relations. Specifically, reward responding may be one developmental process that goes awry as a result of early adversity and poverty. The purpose of the present study was to model two sets of longitudinal trajectories: adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and family poverty beginning during preschool and continuing through adolescence and explore whether these trajectories predicted adolescent neural responses to reward as indexed by event-related potentials (ERPs). We hypothesized that high, chronic ACEs and/or high, chronic poverty would be associated with a decreased response to rewards during adolescence.

Methods: Participants included 310 children enrolled in a longitudinal study of early-onset psychopathology spanning 10 years. From 2003-2005, 3-6-year olds were recruited from primary care practices and preschools/daycare centers throughout a mid-sized metropolitan region using a validated screening checklist (Preschool Feelings Checklist). Children with scores above 3 were oversampled to ensure variability in symptoms of psychopathology. Children and their caregivers completed behavioral assessment waves from ages 3-18 where symptoms of psychopathology were ascertained. In addition, children and their caregivers reported on ACEs that had occurred across the past year (Felitti et al., 1998). Caregivers reported on family income at each assessment and from this information, a income-to-needs ratio was computed as the total family income at baseline divided by the federal poverty level, based on family size at the time of data collection (McLoyd, 1998). At the most recent annual assessment, a subsample of adolescents (n= 138) completed the Doors Guessing Task while ERP indicators of response to reward were recorded.

Results: Beginning during the preschool period, participants were classified into subgroups based on: (1) ACE score and (2) Income-to-Needs across the longitudinal study using growth mixture modeling (GMM). The GMM for ACES revealed a 3-class solution: chronically low, average, and chronically high (Figure 1). The GMM for income-to-needs revealed a 4-class solution: chronic poverty, stable low-income, stable middle-income, and high, decreasing income (Figure 2). ANCOVAs for response to reward showed a significant effect of ACEs latent class, F(1, 137)= 2.99, p=0.05, partial η2= .04, controlling for psychopathology. The mean response for the chronically high latent class (M= 4.87, SE= 0.73) was significantly less positive than the mean response for the average (M= 6.84, SE= 0.58) and chronically low classes (M= 7.20, SE= 0.47). ANCOVAs for response to reward also showed a significant effect of Income-to-Needs latent class, F(1, 137)= 3.79, p=0.01, partial η2= .08, controlling for psychopathology. The mean response for the chronic poverty latent class (M= 5.15, SE= 0.69) was significantly less positive than the mean response for the stable middle-income (M= 7.34, SE= 0.56) and high, decreasing income classes (M= 7.62, SE= 0.57).

Discussion: Alterations in reward responding during adolescence are evident among children exposed to high levels of ACEs as well as children living in chronic poverty from ages 3-18.

Authors

• Diana Whalen, Washington University School of Medicine
  Presenting Author

• Rebecca Tillman, Washington University School of Medicine
  Non-Presenting Author

• Joan Luby, Washington University School of Medicine
  Non-Presenting Author

• Deanna Barch, Washington University School of Medicine
  Non-Presenting Author