In contrast, surface area is greater in more intelligent children at age 10 25. By age 10, more intelligent children have thinner cortices this relationship becomes more pronounced through adolescence 25, 26. Intelligence has been associated with the trajectories of both cortical thickness and surface area. These maturational changes, in concert, result in the mature human brain, and are influenced by both genetic programming and experience. In contrast to thickness, surface area expands through early adolescence and then shrinks through middle adulthood 25. Surface area is thought to be influenced by experience-related synaptic pruning, as well as pressure from increased myelination expanding the brain surface outward. This cortical thinning is thought to relate to synaptic pruning and increases in myelination expanding into the neuropil, both of which would appear as decreases in gray matter on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) 2. However, volume represents a composite of cortical surface area and cortical thickness, two morphometric properties of the brain that are evolutionarily, genetically and developmentally distinct 23.Ĭortical thickness decreases rapidly in childhood and early adolescence, followed by a more gradual thinning and ultimately plateauing in early adulthood 2, 23– 25. Nearly all studies to date have focused on cortical volume. Recent research has begun examining links between SES and structural brain development 13– 22. Neuroanatomical changes are the hallmarks of experience-based neural plasticity 12. SES is linked to children’s neurocognitive function across numerous domains, including language, self-regulation, memory, and socioemotional processing 6– 11. A burgeoning field has emerged at the intersection of the neural and social sciences, investigating associations between childhood SES and brain function 5. In humans, maturation of the brain regions responsible for higher cognitive functioning continues throughout childhood and adolescence, and thus the window for experience-dependent plasticity is long 2.Ĭhildhood socioeconomic status (SES), characterized by parental educational attainment, occupation, and income 3, is associated with early experiences which are important for cognitive development 4. Potential implications are discussed.Įarly experiences are critical for shaping brain development 1. These data indicate that income relates most strongly to brain structure among the most disadvantaged children. These relationships were most prominent in regions supporting language, reading, executive functions and spatial skills surface area mediated socioeconomic differences in certain neurocognitive abilities. Specifically, among children from lower income families, small differences in income were associated with relatively large differences in surface area, whereas, among children from higher income families, similar income increments were associated with smaller differences in surface area.
Income was logarithmically associated with brain surface area.
Here, we investigated relationships between socioeconomic factors and brain morphometry, independently of genetic ancestry, among a cohort of 1099 typically developing individuals between 3 and 20 years. The extent to which this translates to disparities in brain structure is unclear. Socioeconomic disparities are associated with differences in cognitive development.
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