Dimensions of childhood adversity have distinct associations with neural systems underlying executive functioning

Abstract

Childhood adversity is associated with increased risk for psychopathology. Neurodevelopmental pathways underlying this risk remain poorly understood. A recent conceptual model posits that childhood adversity can be deconstructed into at least two underlying dimensions, deprivation and threat, that are associated with distinct neurocognitive consequences. This model argues that deprivation (i.e., a lack of cognitive stimulation and learning opportunities) is associated with poor executive function (EF), whereas threat is not. We examine this hypothesis in two studies measuring EF at multiple levels: performance on EF tasks, neural recruitment during EF, and problems with EF in daily life. In Study 1, deprivation (low parental education and child neglect) was associated with greater parent-reported problems with EF in adolescents (N = 169; 13–17 years) after adjustment for levels of threat (community violence and abuse), which were unrelated to EF. In Study 2, low parental education was associated with poor working memory (WM) performance and inefficient neural recruitment in the parietal and prefrontal cortex during high WM load among adolescents (N = 51, 13–20 years) after adjusting for abuse, which was unrelated to WM task performance and neural recruitment during WM. These findings constitute strong preliminary evidence for a novel model of the neurodevelopmental consequences of childhood adversity.

The relationship between cognitive enrichment and cognitive control: A systematic investigation of environmental influences on development through socioeconomic status

“…Family income ranges from $4,500 to $325,000, with a mean of $97,617 ( SD = $76,719). Given who our sample is with respect to SES (income, education) and trauma and adversity, we cannot in good faith interpret our results in accord with deprivation (Sheridan et al., ; Sheridan & McLaughlin, ) in the relatively lower SES homes in the sample. The lower SES homes in our sample fall within the majority of American households.…”

“…However, our goal is to understand how SES across a wide income range impacts WM, not how the biological embedding of stress impacts WM. A critical distinction is that stress and enrichment act through different mechanisms to shape development (Amso & Lynn, ; Conger & Donnellan, ; Johnson et al., ; Lawson, Camins, et al., ; Lawson, Hook, et al., ; McLaughlin & Sheridan, ; McLaughlin et al., ; Sheridan, Peverill, Finn, & McLaughlin, ; Ursache & Noble, ) . When incorporating the adversities more common in poverty, there is little doubt that stresses acts to shape outcomes.…”

Minds Under Siege: Cognitive Signatures of Poverty and Trauma in Refugee and Non‐Refugee Adolescents

“…Recent work based on the United States has demonstrated a disassociation between trauma and poverty in predicting EF, whereby exposure to poverty but not traumatic violence predicts EF task performance (Lambert et al, ; Sheridan et al, ). This disassociation had never been tested in a sample with high levels of war trauma exposure and related ongoing stressors, as we did here.…”

“…In the United States, poverty is robustly associated with EF deficits in childhood and adolescence (Daneri, Blair, Kuhn, & FLP Key Investigators, ; Haft & Hoeft, ; Wolf & Suntheimer, ). Recent work, however, shows that exposures to poverty and violence have distinct impacts on IC and WM (Lambert, King, Monahan, & McLaughlin, ; Sheridan, Peverill, Finn, & McLaughlin, ). Exposures to violence at home and in the community do not predict WM or IC task performance when controlling for poverty (Sheridan et al, ).…”

Socioeconomic Inequality and the Developing Brain: Spotlight on Language and Executive Function

“…In some studies, socioeconomic disadvantage has been linked with increased brain activation in prefrontal regions in the context of similar task performance. For example, youth from disadvantaged families performed less successfully on EF tasks but showed greater recruitment of PFC regions than youth from more advantaged families (Sheridan, Peverill, Finn, & McLaughlin, ; Sheridan, Sarsour, Jutte, D'Esposito, & Boyce, ; Spielberg et al., ). In another study, lower family income tended to be associated with reduced PFC activation as a function of higher working memory load, as well as with reduced accuracy (though lower family income was associated with greater PFC activation at lower working memory loads; Finn et al., ).…”