Associations between cortical thickness and neurocognitive skills during childhood vary by family socioeconomic factors

Brito, Natalie H.; Piccolo, Luciane da Rosa; Noble, Kimberly G.

doi:10.1016/j.bandc.2017.03.007

Cited by 59 publications

(60 citation statements)

References 63 publications

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“…Consistent with previous studies that demonstrated modulatory influences of SES on the brain–reading relationship (Brito, Piccolo, & Noble, ; Gullick et al, ; Noble et al, ; Romeo et al, ), ILF FA in kindergarten was associated with better second‐grade reading outcomes in lower‐SES but not higher‐SES children. The longitudinal nature of the current findings is a notable difference from other studies that only examined the SES × brain association with reading concurrently.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

The relationship between socioeconomic status and white matter microstructure in pre‐reading children: A longitudinal investigation

Ozernov‐Palchik

Norton

Wang

et al. 2018

Human Brain Mapping

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Reading is a learned skill crucial for educational attainment. Children from families of lower socioeconomic status (SES) tend to have poorer reading performance and this gap widens across years of schooling. Reading relies on the orchestration of multiple neural systems integrated via specific white-matter pathways, but there is limited understanding about whether these pathways relate differentially to reading performance depending on SES background. Kindergarten white-matter FA and second-grade reading outcomes were investigated in an SES-diverse sample of 125 children. The three left-hemisphere white-matter tracts most associated with reading, and their right-hemisphere homologs, were examined: arcuate fasciculus (AF), superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF), and inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF). There was a significant and positive association between SES and fractional anisotropy (FA) in the bilateral ILF in kindergarten. SES moderated the association between kindergarten ILF and second grade reading performance, such that it was positive in lower-SES children, but not significant in higher-SES children. These results have implications for understanding the role of the environment in the development of the neural pathways that support reading.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

The relationship between socioeconomic status and white matter microstructure in pre‐reading children: A longitudinal investigation

Ozernov‐Palchik

Norton

Wang

et al. 2018

Human Brain Mapping

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Because brain structure varies dramatically across childhood and adolescence (Brito et al, 2017; Piccolo et al, 2016), we next divided the sample into two age groups: children (ages 3–11.9, M = 8.4, SD = 2.1, N = 237) and adolescents (ages 12 – 20.9, M = 17.2, SD = 2.5, N = 325). Controlling for covariates (sex, GAF, and scanner type), group analysis for the younger children indicated no significant main effects of income ( p = .20), or dual-language use ( p = .40), and no significant income x dual-language interaction ( p = .71) for cortical SA.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A propensity score was calculated via logistic regression model with age, sex, family income, parental educational attainment, and oral reading score as the covariates, as these variables have been reported to be related to differences in brain structure and cognitive skills during childhood within this dataset (Brito, Piccolo, & Noble, 2017; Noble et al, 2015; Piccolo et al, 2016). Reading score was included to rule out the possibility of any structural brain differences being attributed to reading ability (He et al, 2013).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The independent and interacting effects of socioeconomic status and dual‐language use on brain structure and cognition

Brito

Noble

2018

Developmental Science

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Family socioeconomic status (SES) is strongly associated with children's cognitive development, and past studies have reported socioeconomic disparities in both neurocognitive skills and brain structure across childhood. In other studies, bilingualism has been associated with cognitive advantages and differences in brain structure across the lifespan. The aim of the current study is to concurrently examine the joint and independent associations between family SES and dual-language use with brain structure and cognitive skills during childhood. A subset of data from the Pediatric Imaging, Neurocognition and Genetics (PING) study was analyzed; propensity score matching established an equal sample (N = 562) of monolinguals and dual-language users with similar socio-demographic characteristics (M = 13.5, Range = 3-20 years). When collapsing across all ages, SES was linked to both brain structure and cognitive skills. When examining differences by age group, brain structure was significantly associated with both income and dual-language use during adolescence, but not earlier in childhood. Additionally, in adolescence, a significant interaction between dual-language use and SES was found, with no difference in cortical surface area (SA) between language groups of higher-SES backgrounds but significantly increased SA for dual-language users from lower-SES families compared to SES-matched monolinguals. These results suggest both independent and interacting associations between SES and dual-language use with brain development. To our knowledge, this is the first study to concurrently examine dual-language use and socioeconomic differences in brain structure during childhood and adolescence.

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“…It is well established that family socioeconomic background is associated with children's EF development, and more recent studies have revealed robust links between socioeconomic background and children's brain structure, including CT (Brito & Noble, 2014;Brito, Piccolo, & Noble, 2017;Butterworth, Cherbuin, Sachdev, & Anstey, 2011;Cavanagh et al, 2013;Hair, Hanson, Wolfe, & Pollak, 2015;Hanson, Chandra, Wolfe, & Pollak, 2011;Jednorog, 2012;Lawson, Duda, Avants, Wu, & Farah, 2013;Luby et al, 2012;Mackey et al, 2015;Noble et al, 2015;Noble, Houston, Kan, & Sowell, 2012;Piccolo, Merz, He, Sowell, & Noble, 2016;Schnack et al, 2014;Shaw et al, 2006;Staff et al, 2012) and SA (Noble et al, 2015;Østgård et al, 2016). These findings raise questions about which factors may mediate and/or moderate socioeconomic differences in children's…”

Section: The Role Of School Climate In Relation To Socioeconomic Bamentioning

confidence: 99%

School climate is associated with cortical thickness and executive function in children and adolescents

Piccolo

Merz

Noble

et al. 2018

Developmental Science

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A positive school climate has been found to support mental and physical health, academic achievement and social adjustment among youth. However, links between school climate and brain structure have not been investigated to date. In this study, we investigated whether school climate was associated with executive function (EF) and brain structure (cortical thickness and surface area) in children and adolescents. We further examined whether these links varied as a function of socioeconomic background. Participants who ranged from 9 to 18 years of age (N = 108) completed EF tasks and a high-resolution, 3-Tesla, T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan. Overall school climate, academic support, and family socioeconomic background were assessed using questionnaires. Higher academic support was associated with greater EF task performance and increased global cortical thickness. Additionally, academic support moderated the association between family income and EF, such that children from lower income families performed similarly to their more advantaged peers on EF tasks in the context of positive academic support. This work is the first to link school climate to brain structure and contributes to the growing body of evidence suggesting that academic support may be an important protective factor in the context of socioeconomic disadvantage.

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Associations between cortical thickness and neurocognitive skills during childhood vary by family socioeconomic factors

Cited by 59 publications

References 63 publications

The relationship between socioeconomic status and white matter microstructure in pre‐reading children: A longitudinal investigation

The relationship between socioeconomic status and white matter microstructure in pre‐reading children: A longitudinal investigation

The independent and interacting effects of socioeconomic status and dual‐language use on brain structure and cognition

School climate is associated with cortical thickness and executive function in children and adolescents

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