Adolescent functional network connectivity prospectively predicts adult anxiety symptoms related to perceived COVID-19 economic adversity.

BACKGROUND: Stressful events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, are major contributors to anxiety and depression, but only a subset of individuals develop psychopathology. In a population-based sample (N = 174) with a high representation of marginalized individuals, this study examined adolescent functional network connectivity as a marker of susceptibility to anxiety and depression in the context of adverse experiences. METHODS: Data-driven network-based subgroups were identified using an unsupervised community detection algorithm within functional neural connectivity. Neuroimaging data collected during emotion processing (age 15) were extracted from a priori regions of interest linked to anxiety and depression. Symptoms were self-reported at ages 15, 17, and 21 (during COVID-19). During COVID-19, participants reported on pandemic-related economic adversity. Differences across subgroup networks were first examined, then subgroup membership and subgroup-adversity interaction were tested to predict change in symptoms over time. RESULTS: Two subgroups were identified: Subgroup A, characterized by relatively greater neural network variation (i.e., heterogeneity) and density with more connections involving the amygdala, subgenual cingulate, and ventral striatum; and the more homogenous Subgroup B, with more connections involving the insula and dorsal anterior cingulate. Accounting for initial symptoms, subgroup A individuals had greater increases in symptoms across time (ß = .138, p = .042), and this result remained after adjusting for additional covariates (ß = .194, p = .023). Furthermore, there was a subgroup-adversity interaction: compared with Subgroup B, Subgroup A reported greater anxiety during the pandemic in response to reported economic adversity (ß = .307, p = .006), and this remained after accounting for initial symptoms and many covariates (ß = .237, p = .021). CONCLUSIONS: A subgrouping algorithm identified young adults who were susceptible to adversity using their personalized functional network profiles derived from a priori brain regions. These results highlight potential prospective neural signatures involving heterogeneous emotion networks that predict individuals at the greatest risk for anxiety when experiencing adverse events.

Socioeconomic resources are associated with distributed alterations of the brain's intrinsic functional architecture in youth.

Little is known about how exposure to limited socioeconomic resources (SER) in childhood gets "under the skin" to shape brain development, especially using rigorous whole-brain multivariate methods in large, adequately powered samples. The present study examined resting state functional connectivity patterns from 5821 youth in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, employing multivariate methods across three levels: whole-brain, network-wise, and connection-wise. Across all three levels, SER was associated with widespread alterations across the connectome. However, critically, we found that parental education was the primary driver of neural associations with SER. These parental education associations with the developing connectome exhibited notable concentrations in somatosensory and subcortical regions, and they were partially accounted for by home enrichment activities, child's cognitive abilities, and child's grades, indicating interwoven links between parental education, child stimulation, and child cognitive performance. These results add a new data-driven, multivariate perspective on links between household SER and the child's developing functional connectome.

Childhood violence exposure and social deprivation predict adolescent amygdala-orbitofrontal cortex white matter connectivity.

Childhood adversity is heterogeneous with potentially distinct dimensions of violence exposure and social deprivation. These dimensions may differentially shape emotion-based neural circuitry, such as amygdala-PFC white matter connectivity. Amygdala-orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) white matter connectivity has been linked to regulation of the amygdala's response to emotional stimuli. Using a preregistered analysis plan, we prospectively examined the effects of childhood exposure to two dimensions of adversity, violence exposure and social deprivation, on the adolescent amygdala-PFC white matter connectivity. We also reproduced the negative correlation between amygdala-PFC white matter connectivity and amygdala activation to threat faces. 183 15-17-year-olds were recruited from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study - a longitudinal, birth cohort, sample of predominantly low-income youth. Probabilistic tractography revealed that childhood violence exposure and social deprivation interacted to predict the probability of adolescent right hemisphere amygdala-OFC white matter connectivity. High violence exposure with high social deprivation related to less amygdala-OFC white matter connectivity. Violence exposure was not associated with white matter connectivity when social deprivation was at mean or low levels (i.e., relatively socially supportive contexts). Therefore, social deprivation may exacerbate the effects of childhood violence exposure on the development of white matter connections involved in emotion processing and regulation. Conversely, social support may buffer against them.

Correspondence Between Perceived Pubertal Development and Hormone Levels in 9-10 Year-Olds From the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study.

Aim: To examine individual variability between perceived physical features and hormones of pubertal maturation in 9-10-year-old children as a function of sociodemographic characteristics. Methods: Cross-sectional metrics of puberty were utilized from the baseline assessment of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study-a multi-site sample of 9-10 year-olds (n = 11,875)-and included perceived physical features via the pubertal development scale (PDS) and child salivary hormone levels (dehydroepiandrosterone and testosterone in all, and estradiol in females). Multi-level models examined the relationships among sociodemographic measures, physical features, and hormone levels. A group factor analysis (GFA) was implemented to extract latent variables of pubertal maturation that integrated both measures of perceived physical features and hormone levels. Results: PDS summary scores indicated more males (70%) than females (31%) were prepubertal. Perceived physical features and hormone levels were significantly associated with child's weight status and income, such that more mature scores were observed among children that were overweight/obese or from households with low-income. Results from the GFA identified two latent factors that described individual differences in pubertal maturation among both females and males, with factor 1 driven by higher hormone levels, and factor 2 driven by perceived physical maturation. The correspondence between latent factor 1 scores (hormones) and latent factor 2 scores (perceived physical maturation) revealed synchronous and asynchronous relationships between hormones and concomitant physical features in this large young adolescent sample. Conclusions: Sociodemographic measures were associated with both objective hormone and self-report physical measures of pubertal maturation in a large, diverse sample of 9-10 year-olds. The latent variables of pubertal maturation described a complex interplay between perceived physical changes and hormone levels that hallmark sexual maturation, which future studies can examine in relation to trajectories of brain maturation, risk/resilience to substance use, and other mental health outcomes.

Antisocial behavior with callous-unemotional traits is associated with widespread disruptions to white matter structural connectivity among low-income, urban males.

Antisocial behavior (AB), including violence, criminality, and substance abuse, is often linked to deficits in emotion processing, reward-related learning, and inhibitory control, as well as their associated neural networks. To better understand these deficits, the structural connections between brain regions implicated in AB can be examined using diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), which assesses white matter microstructure. Prior studies have identified differences in white matter microstructure of the uncinate fasciculus (UF), primarily within offender samples. However, few studies have looked beyond the UF or determined whether these relationships are present dimensionally across the range of AB and callous-unemotional (CU) traits. In the current study, we examined associations between AB and white matter microstructure from major fiber tracts, including the UF. Further, we explored whether these associations were specific to individuals high on CU traits. Within a relatively large community sample of young adult men from low-income, urban families (N = 178), we found no direct relations between dimensional, self-report measures of either AB or CU traits and white matter microstructure. However, we found significant associations between AB and white matter microstructure of several tracts only for those with high co-occurring levels of CU traits. In general, these associations did not differ according to race, socioeconomic status, or comorbid psychiatric symptoms. The current results suggest a unique neural profile of severe AB in combination with CU traits, characterized by widespread differences in white matter microstructure, which differs from either AB or CU traits in isolation and is not specific to hypothesized tracts (i.e., the UF).

Amygdala reactivity as a marker of differential susceptibility to socioeconomic resources during early adulthood.

Models of differential susceptibility hypothesize that neural function may be a marker of differential susceptibility to context, but no studies have tested this hypothesis. Using a sample of 310 young men from low-income urban neighborhoods, this study investigated amygdala reactivity to facial expressions as a moderator of the relations between socioeconomic resources and later antisocial behavior (AB) and income. For individuals with high amygdala reactivity, greater socioeconomic resources at age 20 predicted less AB and greater income at age 22. For young men with low amygdala reactivity, however, socioeconomic resources at age 20 did not predict later outcomes. Amygdala reactivity to fearful facial expressions, key to the etiology of AB, moderated links between resources and AB. In contrast, amygdala reactivity more generally to multiple facial expressions moderated the effects of resources on later income attainment. Both interactions met rigorous quantitative criteria for patterns of differential susceptibility rather than diathesis stress or vantage sensitivity. Moreover, these associations remained significant after inclusion of socioeconomic resources during earlier developmental periods. These results suggest that greater amygdala reactivity to facial expressions is a marker of greater susceptibility to context, for better or for worse, during the transition to adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).