Youth growing up in disadvantaged neighborhoods are more likely than their advantaged peers to face negative behavioral and mental health outcomes. Although studies have shown that adversity can undermine positive development via its impact on the developing brain, few studies have examined the association between neighborhood disadvantage and neural function, and no study has investigated potential social mechanisms within the neighborhood that might link neighborhood disadvantage to altered neural function. The current study evaluated the association between neighborhood disadvantage and amygdala reactivity during socioemotional face processing. We also assessed whether and which neighborhood-level social processes were related to amygdala reactivity, and whether these social processes mediated or moderated the association between neighborhood disadvantage and altered amygdala reactivity. We examined these aims in a registered report, using a sample of twins aged 7–19 years ( N = 354 families, 708 twins) recruited from birth records with enrichment for neighborhood disadvantage. Twins completed a socioemotional face processing fMRI task and a sample of unrelated participants from the twins’ neighborhoods were also recruited to serve as informants on neighborhood social processes. We found that neighborhood disadvantage was associated with greater right amygdala reactivity to threat, but only when neighborhood informants perceived norms in the neighborhood to be more permissive regarding general safety and management. The findings from this research add to the growing literature highlighting the influence of neighborhood disadvantage on amygdala function and the ways that supportive social processes may buffer the impact of adversity on brain function.

Although a growing literature has linked extreme psychosocial adversity in early development to brain structure and function, recent studies highlight that differences in socioeconomic resources may also affect brain development. In this article, we describe research linking variation in neighborhood context and parenting practices, two contexts shaped by socioeconomic resources, to neural function and structure, particularly in the corticolimbic circuit that supports socioemotional processing. Key considerations include the nested nature of contexts, the developmental timing of exposures, and the role of resilience. While this area of research may help inform policy, scientists and policymakers must be cautious in their interpretation of disadvantage‐to‐brain research to avoid a deficit‐centered approach. Ultimately, this emerging area of research highlights that common and normative variation in experiences in the home and neighborhood is linked to brain structure and function, which may provide proximal mechanisms to understand how and why socioeconomic resources are related to brain development.

We examined the longitudinal relation between behavioral inhibition (BI) and social anxiety symptoms and behavior and the mediating role of emotion regulation (ER). Moreover, we investigated the influence of parenting behavior on the development of ER strategies. Participants were 291 children (135 male) followed longitudinally from 2 to 13 years. Mothers were predominantly well educated and non-Hispanic Caucasian. Children were screened for BI using maternal report and observational measures (ages 2 and 3), parenting behavior was observed while children and their mothers participated in a fear-eliciting task (age 3), ER strategies were observed while children completed a disappointment task (age 5), and socially anxious behavior was measured via multimethod assessment at 10 and 13 years. Children who exhibited high BI in early childhood exhibited more socially anxious behavior across ages 10 and 13, and there was a significant indirect effect of BI on socially anxious behavior through ER strategies. Children who were high in BI demonstrated less engaged ER strategies during the disappointment task, which in turn predicted more socially anxious behavior. Furthermore, parenting behavior moderated the pathway linking early BI and ER strategies to social anxiety outcomes such that children who exhibited high BI and who received more affectionate/oversolicitous behavior from their mother displayed less engaged ER strategies and more socially anxious behavior than children low in BI or low in oversolicitous parenting behaviors. These findings expand on our understanding of the role that ER strategies and parenting play in the developmental pathway linking early BI to future social anxiety outcomes.

The current investigation examines the relation between perinatal complications and social anxiety incorporating the potential indirect effect of child temperament. Participants were 149 children aged 9 to 12 years (Mage = 9.97, SDage = 1.00) screened for behavioural inhibition (BI) and assessed for social anxiety symptoms using parent and child reports. Participating families also reported on the presence of perinatal complications. Results indicated that children who experienced perinatal complications were higher in BI and social anxiety than were children who did not experience complications. Furthermore, there was an indirect effect between perinatal complications and social anxiety via BI. These findings provide further support for the established relation between perinatal complications and anxiety and demonstrate, for the first time, that this relation may be mediated by temperament, setting the stage for longitudinal analyses. Highlights Perinatal complications were associated with increased social anxiety and fearful temperament (i.e., behavioral inhibition). The relation between perinatal complications and social anxiety may be mediated by children's fearful temperament. Results support the established relation between perinatal complications and anxiety and show that this relation may be mediated by temperament.