Stable longitudinal associations of family income with children’s hippocampal volume and memory persist after controlling for polygenic scores of educational attainment

Raffington, Laurel; Mohn, Johannes J.; Falck, Johannes; Schmoll, Vanessa; Heim, Christine; Binder, Elisabeth B.; Shing, Yee Lee

doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2019.100720

Cited by 28 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 66 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…To our knowledge, only three other studies have measured the effect of any cognitive polygenic score on longitudinal change during development, and zero studies on cognitive training changes. Of those, two studies have failed to predict development from the cogPGS using as outcome measure either long-term memory 43 or a broad cognitive measure (including decision making, pattern recognition, rapid visual processing, and WM) 44 . What could explain these contrasting findings?…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Change by challenge: A common genetic basis behind childhood cognitive development and cognitive training

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The interplay of genetic and environmental factors behind cognitive development has preoccupied multiple fields of science and sparked heated debates over the decades. Here we tested the hypothesis that developmental genes rely heavily on cognitive challenges—as opposed to natural maturation. Starting with a polygenic score (cogPGS) that previously explained variation in cognitive performance in adults, we estimated its effect in 344 children and adolescents (mean age of 12 years old, ranging from 6 to 25) who showed changes in working memory (WM) in two distinct samples: (1) a developmental sample showing significant WM gains after 2 years of typical, age-related development, and (2) a training sample showing significant, experimentally-induced WM gains after 25 days of an intense WM training. We found that the same genetic factor, cogPGS, significantly explained the amount of WM gain in both samples. And there was no interaction of cogPGS with sample, suggesting that those genetic factors are neutral to whether the WM gains came from development or training. These results represent evidence that cognitive challenges are a central piece in the gene-environment interplay during cognitive development. We believe our study sheds new light on previous findings of interindividual differences in education (rich-get-richer and compensation effects), brain plasticity in children, and the heritability increase of intelligence across the lifespan.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Change by challenge: A common genetic basis behind childhood cognitive development and cognitive training

et al. 2021

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…A meta‐analysis summarized 25 studies and found that the effect size of SES on cognitive flexibility ( r = 0.17), inhibitory control ( r = .14), and working memory ( r = .18) was similar (Lawson et al, 2018). Similarly, empirical studies have found that family SES is associated with working memory (Raffington et al, 2019), inhibition control, and cognitive flexibility (He & Yin, 2016; Sarsour et al, 2011). Based on our results and the previous literature, it is reasonable to believe that a low family SES is an important risk factor for children’s executive function.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 92%

“…A meta‐analysis revealed that a small‐ to medium‐sized correlation exists between SES and executive function in children aged 2–18 years and that the SES‐EF relationship remains stable across childhood (Lawson, Hook, & Farah, 2018). Specifically, children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds perform worse in terms of working memory (Hackman, Gallop, Evans, & Farah, 2015; Last et al, 2018; Raffington et al, 2019), inhibitory control (He & Yin, 2016; Last et al, 2018; Sarsour et al, 2011; Spielberg et al, 2015), and cognitive flexibility (He & Yin, 2016; Sarsour et al, 2011). Moreover, evidence collected via electrophysiological and neuroimaging methods further supports the existence of SES‐related disparities in executive function (Hackman & Farah, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Family socio‐economic status and children’s executive function: The moderating effects of parental subjective socio‐economic status and children’s subjective social mobility

Ming

Zhang

Jiang

et al. 2021

British J of Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Family socio‐economic status (SES) is significantly related to disparities in children’s executive function. Children from economically disadvantaged backgrounds perform worse on executive function tasks than their peers from high‐SES families. The protective factors in the relationship between SES and executive function have not been sufficiently investigated, especially from the perspective of parents’ and children’s perceptions and expectations regarding SES. Therefore, this study aimed to examine whether parental subjective SES and children’s subjective social mobility separately moderated the relationship between family SES and children’s executive function among 885 participants aged 9–13 years. The results showed that family SES was positively related to the three components of executive function (cognitive flexibility, inhibitory control, and working memory). Moreover, the relationship between SES and cognitive flexibility was weak among the children with a high level of subjective social mobility or those whose parents had high levels of subjective SES. Among children from families with economic hardship, subjective social mobility is a potential protective factor mitigating the negative effects of low family SES on their cognitive flexibility.

show abstract

“…Research showed that the higher-income group had greater memory capacity [ 29 ]. Children from economically disadvantaged background showed lower memory performance and had a smaller hippocampal volume [ 30 ]. Lower income was associated with a flatter cortisol awakening response, blunted reactivity and recovery to acute stress [ 31 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Association studies of dopamine synthesis and metabolism genes with multiple phenotypes of heroin dependence

Zhu

Lai

et al. 2020

BMC Med Genet

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: Heroin dependence is a complex disease with multiple phenotypes. Classification of heroin users into more homogeneous subgroups on the basis of these phenotypes could help to identify the involved genetic factors and precise treatments. This study aimed to identify the association between genetic polymorphisms of DA synthesis and metabolism genes, including tyrosine hydroxylase (TH), DOPA decarboxylase (DDC), solute carrier family 6 member 3 (SLC6A3) and DA beta-hydroxylase (DBH), with six important phenotypes of heroin dependence. Methods: A total of 801 heroin dependent patients were recruited and fourteen potential functional single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) were genotyped by SNaPshot. Associations between SNPs with six phenotypes were mainly assessed by binary logistic regression. Generalized multifactor dimensionality reduction was used to analyze the gene-by-gene and gene-by-environment interactions. Results: We found that DBH rs1611114 TT genotype had a protective effect on memory impairment after heroin dependence (P = 0.002, OR = 0.610). We also found that the income-rs12666409-rs129915-rs1611114 interaction yielded the highest testing balance accuracy and cross-validation consistency for memory change after heroin dependence. Conclusions: Our results suggest that the memory change after heroin dependence was a result of a combination of genetics and environment. This finding could lead to a better understanding of heroin dependence and further improve personalized treatment.

show abstract

Stable longitudinal associations of family income with children’s hippocampal volume and memory persist after controlling for polygenic scores of educational attainment

Cited by 28 publications

References 66 publications

Change by challenge: A common genetic basis behind childhood cognitive development and cognitive training

Change by challenge: A common genetic basis behind childhood cognitive development and cognitive training

Family socio‐economic status and children’s executive function: The moderating effects of parental subjective socio‐economic status and children’s subjective social mobility

Association studies of dopamine synthesis and metabolism genes with multiple phenotypes of heroin dependence

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About