Effect of Hippocampal and Amygdala Connectivity on the Relationship Between Preschool Poverty and School-Age Depression

Abstract

Objective This study tested the hypothesis that poverty experienced in early childhood, as measured by income-to-needs ratio, impacts functional brain connectivity at school age, which in turn mediates influences on child negative mood/depression. Method Participants were from a prospective longitudinal study of emotion development. Preschoolers 3–5 years of age were originally ascertained from primary care and day care sites in the St. Louis area and then were annually assessed behaviorally for up to 12 years. Healthy preschoolers and those with a history of depression symptoms participated in neuroimaging at school age. Using fMRI, we examined whole brain resting state functional connectivity with bilateral hippocampus and amygdala. Results Lower income-to-needs in preschool was associated with reduced connectivity between hippocampus and amygdala and a number of regions at school-age, including superior frontal cortex, lingual gyrus, posterior cingulate and putamen. Lower income-to-needs predicted greater negative mood/depression severity at school age, as did connectivity between left hippocampus and right superior frontal cortex and between right amygdala and right lingual gyrus. Connectivity mediated the relationship between income-to-needs and negative mood/depression at the time of scan. Conclusions The finding that lower income-to-needs in early childhood related to connectivity of the hippocampus and the amygdala, which in turn predicted negative mood/depression at school age, further highlights a critical role for poverty in shaping brain development and elucidates a relationship to negative child outcomes.

The relationship between biological and psychosocial risk factors and resting‐state functional connectivity in 2‐month‐old Bangladeshi infants: A feasibility and pilot study

“…less negative) iFC between bilateral amygdala seeds and left precuneus. The negative participant‐level iFC estimates for the APL group, as extracted from the between‐group result, align with previous findings showing that negative amygdala/precuneus iFC is typical in adults (Zhang & Li, ) and that attenuated negative amygdala/precuneus iFC is associated with greater symptoms of depression in children (Barch et al, ). Amygdala/precuneus iFC was not associated with HAZ, a proxy for malnutrition and exposure to infection (de Onis & Branca, ; de Onis et al, ).…”

“…More recently, resting‐state fMRI was used to examine the relationship between income‐to‐needs and intrinsic functional connectivity (iFC) between the amygdala and other brain areas in children (mean age: 9.9 years). Negative correlations were observed between income‐to‐needs and left amygdala/right precuneus iFC and right amygdala/left superior parietal cortex iFC (Barch et al, ), supporting findings from retrospective studies of adults raised in poverty in the U.S., which showed a similar relationship between income‐to‐needs and altered amygdala iFC (Javanbakht et al, ; Kim et al, ).…”

“…The presence of a between‐group iFC effect for the amygdala, but not visual or auditory, seeds, suggests that risk factors associated with poverty may alter iFC in a regionally specific manner at this early point in life. Stated cautiously, this conclusion is bolstered by the convergence of previous literature on relationships between childhood income‐to‐needs and structures localized disproportionately to the medial temporal lobe (Barch et al, ; Javanbakht et al, ; Kim et al, ; Luby et al, ). Additionally, a resting‐state fMRI study in 6‐month‐old infants conducted in the U.S. found no significant association between income and visual, auditory, motor, or default‐mode network iFC after correcting for multiple comparisons (Gao et al, ).…”

Perinatal maternal depressive symptoms alter amygdala functional connectivity in girls

“…Maternal ethnicity and maternal education were thought to represent socio‐economic status, which have been suggested to impact brain development (Barch et al, ; Sripada, Swain, Evans, Welsh, & Liberzon, ). Hence, these two variables were included as covariates in all regression analyses.…”

Incorporating evidence‐based behavioral teacher training into Head Start mental health consultation: Description and initial outcomes of a large‐scale program

“…The disparity between the need for, and delivery of, preventative mental health is especially prevalent among children living in families that experience socioeconomic disadvantage (Kataoka, Zhang, & Wells, 2002). This disparity likely plays a role in the link demonstrated in multiple large‐scale longitudinal studies between childhood poverty and poor adult health and well‐being (Barch et al, 2016; Brooks‐Gunn & Duncan, 1997; Evans & Cassells, 2014; Hair, Hanson, Wolfe, & Pollak, 2015).…”