Poster #40 - Racial Discrimination, Resting-State Functional Connectivity, and Psychopathology in Early Adolescence: a Co-Sibling Control Analysis.

• In Event: Poster Session 16

Abstract

Events of the last two years, including the COVID-19 pandemic, notorious police killings, and the resultant racial justice movements, have highlighted longstanding societal inequities and led to a significant increase in instances of race-based trauma and discrimination in the United States, which carries potentially grave consequence for the health and behavioral development of children and adolescents (Ruiz et al., 2020). Extant literature has, for example, shown that children and adolescents exposed to racial discrimination are more likely to experience chronic health issues, substance use, internalizing and externalizing problems, depression, anxiety, and suicidality (Carter et al., 2017; Priest et al., 2013). Moreover, racial discrimination has been linked to maladaptive deviations in the brain, with prior research providing evidence of the effects of discrimination on structural morphology and task-based functioning (Hatzenbuehler et al., 2021; Fani, Carter et al., 2021; Fani, Harnett, et al., 2021). However, far fewer studies to date have explored the effects of discrimination on resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC), with the few that have finding differential connectivity in Black adults reporting greater racial discrimination (Webb et al., 2022; Clark et al., 2018). We are unaware of any studies to date that have explored this relationship in children and adolescents.
This preregistered study aims to fill this gap in the literature by examining associations between racial discrimination, rsFC, and mental health in youth. In a subsample of 11- and 12-year-old preadolescents (n = 7,890, 37% children of color) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, we will first conduct an exploratory examination of associations between within- and between-network rsFC for the 12 predefined Gordon network parcellations and internalizing and externalizing symptoms (measured using parent reports on the Child Behavior Checklist) using linear mixed models. After adjusting for multiple comparisons, rsFC network associations that are significant at a predefined level (p < .05) will be carried over for follow-up analyses in an independent subsample of ABCD siblings that are children of color (n = 1,228). Preliminary analyses show that the siblings of color differ in exposure to discrimination, with 28% of the variance in discrimination exposure between families and 72% within families. Using a co-sibling control design to account for genetic and environmental factors shared by siblings, including potential confounding variables, we will compute shared and difference variables for sibling discrimination exposure and conduct linear mixed models with internalizing and externalizing symptoms as the dependent variables, discrimination (including shared and differences in exposure across siblings) as the independent variable, and rsFC (separate models for each network connection) as the potential moderating variables. We expect to find that greater racial discrimination exposure is associated with more internalizing and externalizing symptoms and less protective rsFC. We also expect that discrimination will moderate effects of rsFC on internalizing and externalizing symptoms such that greater racial discrimination will exacerbate symptoms when rsFC is less protective. Findings from this pre-registered study will yield a greater understanding of the effects of racial discrimination on adolescent development and the associated neural mechanisms underlying mental health.

Authors

• Nathalie M. Dumornay, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
  Presenting Author

• SYLIA WILSON, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities