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The Role of Community Contexts and Environmental Exposures in Brain Development

Wed, April 7, 11:35am to 1:05pm EDT (11:35am to 1:05pm EDT), Virtual

Session Type: Paper Symposium

Abstract

There has been increasing interest in examining how the wider contexts children are exposed to, in a multilevel framework, are associated with brain development. Despite significant advancements in understanding the role of family poverty, for example, there is much less known about how wider community-level risk or protective factors such as school environments or environmental toxin exposures are related to brain development. The papers in this session will wrestle with such wider developmental exposures and consider different approaches to examining the independent and intersecting associations of such factors with brain structure and function. Paper 1 examines the role of positive school climates in socioemotional functioning and cortical and subcortical morphology at the beginning of adolescence, and whether that role may vary across socioeconomic contexts. Paper 2 continues the consideration of interactions, examining whether more advantaged neighborhood and family socioeconomic environments reduce the association between maternal depression and infant resting brain activity. Paper 3 examines the association between early exposure to metals and white matter microstructure, independent of socioeconomic status, and how that varies by sex. Paper 4 also examined white matter microstructure, examining the role of PM2.5 exposure independent of social and demographic confounds. They will also provide the basis for a discussion on how to integrate the diverse social and environmental contexts and exposures children experience in their wider communities, and how to consider intersecting and independent effects, in a manner that pushes theory and evidence forward while generating results that can be relevant for policy.

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