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.

School connectedness as a protective factor against childhood exposure to violence and social deprivation: A longitudinal study of adaptive and maladaptive outcomes.

School connectedness, a construct indexing supportive school relationships, has been posited to promote resilience to environmental adversity. Consistent with prominent calls in the field, we examined the protective nature of school connectedness against two dimensions of early adversity that index multiple levels of environmental exposure (violence exposure, social deprivation) when predicting both positive and negative outcomes in longitudinal data from 3,246 youth in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (48% female, 49% African American). Child and adolescent school connectedness were promotive, even when accounting for the detrimental effects of early adversity. Additionally, childhood school connectedness had a protective but reactive association with social deprivation, but not violence exposure, when predicting externalizing symptoms and positive function. Specifically, school connectedness was protective against the negative effects of social deprivation, but the effect diminished as social deprivation became more extreme. These results suggest that social relationships at school may compensate for low levels of social support in the home and neighborhood. Our results highlight the important role that the school environment can play for youth who have been exposed to adversity in other areas of their lives and suggest specific groups that may especially benefit from interventions that boost school connectedness.

Differential Developmental Associations of Material Hardship Exposure and Adolescent Amygdala-Prefrontal Cortex White Matter Connectivity.

Accumulating literature has linked poverty to brain structure and function, particularly in affective neural regions; however, few studies have examined associations with structural connections or the importance of developmental timing of exposure. Moreover, prior neuroimaging studies have not used a proximal measure of poverty (i.e., material hardship, which assesses food, housing, and medical insecurity) to capture the lived experience of growing up in harsh economic conditions. The present investigation addressed these gaps collectively by examining the associations between material hardship (ages 1, 3, 5, 9, and 15 years) and white matter connectivity of frontolimbic structures (age 15 years) in a low-income sample. We applied probabilistic tractography to diffusion imaging data collected from 194 adolescents. Results showed that material hardship related to amygdala-prefrontal, but not hippocampus-prefrontal or hippocampus-amygdala, white matter connectivity. Specifically, hardship during middle childhood (ages 5 and 9 years) was associated with greater connectivity between the amygdala and dorsomedial pFC, whereas hardship during adolescence (age 15 years) was related to reduced amygdala-orbitofrontal (OFC) and greater amygdala-subgenual ACC connectivity. Growth curve analyses showed that greater increases of hardship across time were associated with both greater (amygdala-subgenual ACC) and reduced (amygdala-OFC) white matter connectivity. Furthermore, these effects remained above and beyond other types of adversity, and greater hardship and decreased amygdala-OFC connectivity were related to increased anxiety and depressive symptoms. Results demonstrate that the associations between material hardship and white matter connections differ across key prefrontal regions and developmental periods, providing support for potential windows of plasticity for structural circuits that support emotion processing.

Spotlighting Black Adolescent Development in the Shadow of Racism: A Commentary.

The special issue brings together scholarship that expands our understanding of the adverse effects of interpersonal, online, and vicarious racial discrimination on Black adolescents' psychosocial well-being and sociocultural factors (e.g., racial socialization and positive racial identity) that mitigate these effects. It also focuses attention on ways that adolescents' behavior and characteristics shape racial socialization. Some of the critical tasks that lie ahead include elevating a developmental perspective, documenting developmental pathways, directly assessing proximal mediating processes, giving more attention to the robustness and replicability of findings, and expanding levels of analyses and outcomes to include both macro-structural indicators and indicators of physiological and neuropsychological functioning.

Commentary: Advancing Our Understanding of Asian American Child Development: History, Context, and Culture as Essential Considerations.

The Special Section will help scholars make informed choices about how to conceptualize developmental processes and assess contextually and culturally relevant variables in future research with Asian American children and youth. It undertakes tasks and addresses challenges that have broad relevance to the study of developmental processes and stands as a reminder of the vital role of interdisciplinary perspectives in the advancement of developmental science.

Racial Socialization, Racial Identity, and Academic Attitudes Among African American Adolescents: Examining the Moderating Influence of Parent-Adolescent Communication.

A significant gap remains in our understanding of the conditions under which parents' racial socialization has consequences for adolescents' functioning. The present study used longitudinal data to examine whether the frequency of communication between African American parents and adolescents (N = 504; 49 % female) moderates the association between parent reports of racial socialization (i.e., cultural socialization and preparation for bias) at 8th grade and adolescent reports of racial identity (perceived structural discrimination, negative public regard, success-oriented centrality) at 11th grade, and in turn, academic attitudes and perceptions. Parents' racial socialization practices were significant predictors of multiple aspects of adolescents' racial identity in families with high levels of communication, but they did not predict any aspects of adolescents' racial identity in families with low levels of communication. Results highlight the importance of including family processes when examining the relations between parents' racial socialization and adolescents' racial identity and academic attitudes and perceptions.

Neighborhood and housing disorder, parenting, and youth adjustment in low-income urban families.

Using two waves of data, this study examined relations among neighborhood and housing disorder, parents' psychological distress, parenting behaviors, and subsequent youth adjustment in a low-income, multiethnic sample of families with children aged 6-16. Results supported the hypothesized indirect relation between disorder and youth outcomes via parenting processes. Higher levels of neighborhood and housing disorder were associated with higher levels of parents' psychological distress, which was in turn related to more frequent use of harsh and inconsistent discipline strategies and lower parental warmth. More frequent use of harsh and inconsistent discipline was associated with higher levels of youth internalizing and externalizing behaviors 3 years later. Housing disorder contributed more strongly to parents' psychological distress than neighborhood disorder, whereas neighborhood disorder contributed more strongly to youth externalizing behaviors compared to housing disorder. Multiple-group analyses showed that the patterns of relations were similar for younger and older children, and for girls and boys.

Parents' participation in a work-based anti-poverty program can enhance their children's future orientation: understanding pathways of influence.

Planning and preparing for life after high school is a central developmental task of American adolescents, and may be even more critical for low-income youth who are less likely to attend a four year college. This study investigates factors that led to the effects of the New Hope Project, a work-based, anti-poverty program directed at parents on youths' career-related thoughts and planning. The New Hope project was implemented in Milwaukee, WI, during the mid-1990s. 745 families participated (52% male children; 56% African American; 30% Latino, and 15% White non-Hispanic) and half were randomly selected to receive New Hope benefits, which included earnings supplements, job search assistance, and child and health care subsidies for 3 years. Importantly, effects on youths' future orientation were found 8 years after the program began (5 years after benefits ended). The present study investigates what factors sustained these positive impacts over time. Results indicate that parental perceptions of reading performance mediate the effects of New Hope on youths' cynicism about work. Additionally, parental perceptions of reading performance and youths' educational expectations mediate the effects of New Hope on boys' pessimism about future employment. These findings highlight the importance of youths' educational development to their career-related thoughts and planning.

Early childhood household instability, adolescent structural neural network architecture, and young adulthood depression: A 21-year longitudinal study.

Unstable and unpredictable environments are linked to risk for psychopathology, but the underlying neural mechanisms that explain how instability relate to subsequent mental health concerns remain unclear. In particular, few studies have focused on the association between instability and white matter structures despite white matter playing a crucial role for neural development. In a longitudinal sample recruited from a population-based study (N = 237), household instability (residential moves, changes in household composition, caregiver transitions in the first 5 years) was examined in association with adolescent structural network organization (network integration, segregation, and robustness of white matter connectomes; Mage = 15.87) and young adulthood anxiety and depression (six years later). Results indicate that greater instability related to greater global network efficiency, and this association remained after accounting for other types of adversity (e.g., harsh parenting, neglect, food insecurity). Moreover, instability predicted increased depressive symptoms via increased network efficiency even after controlling for previous levels of symptoms. Exploratory analyses showed that structural connectivity involving the left fronto-lateral and temporal regions were most strongly related to instability. Findings suggest that structural network efficiency relating to household instability may be a neural mechanism of risk for later depression and highlight the ways in which instability modulates neural development.

Exposure to violence and socioemotional adjustment in low-income youth: an examination of protective factors.

Using a sample of 391 low-income youth ages 13-17, this study investigated the potential moderating effects of school climate, participation in extracurricular activities, and positive parent-child relations on associations between exposure to violence (i.e., witnessing violence and violent victimization) and adolescent socioemotional adjustment (i.e., internalizing and externalizing problems). Exposure to violence was related to both internalizing and externalizing problems. High levels of participation in extracurricular activities and positive parent-child relations appeared to function as protective factors, weakening the positive association between exposure to violence and externalizing problems. Contrary to prediction, school climate did not moderate associations between exposure to violence and socioemotional adjustment. Further, none of the hypothesized protective factors moderated the association between exposure to violence and internalizing problems.

Assessing the effects of a work-based antipoverty program for parents on youth's future orientation and employment experiences.

The impacts of New Hope, a 3-year work-based antipoverty program to increase parent employment and reduce poverty, on youth ages 9-19 (N = 866) were assessed 5 years after parents left the program. New Hope had positive effects on the future orientation and employment experiences of boys, especially African American boys. Compared to boys in control group families, boys in program group families were less cynical about work, less pessimistic about their employment prospects, and more involved in employment and career preparation. They also worked for longer periods during the school year than did control group boys. Comparable effects were not found for girls. The developmental significance of the findings, possible processes that led to the impacts, and the policy implications of the findings are discussed.

Examining the Black-White achievement gap among low-income children using the NICHD study of early child care and youth development.

The Black-White achievement gap in children's reading and mathematics school performance from 4½ years of age through fifth grade was examined in a sample of 314 lower income American youth followed from birth. Differences in family, child care, and schooling experiences largely explained Black-White differences in achievement, and instructional quality was a stronger predictor for Black than White children. In addition, the achievement gap was detected as young as 3 years of age. Taken together, the findings suggest that reducing the Black-White achievement gap may require early intervention to reduce race gaps in home and school experiences during the infant and toddler years as well as during the preschool and school years.

Evaluation of a Longitudinal Family Stress Model in a Population-Based Cohort.

The Family Stress Model (FSM) is an influential family process model that posits that socioeconomic disadvantage impacts child outcomes via its effects on parents. Existing evaluations of the FSM are constrained by limited measures of socioeconomic disadvantage, cross-sectional research designs, and reliance on non-population-based samples. The current study tested the FSM in a subsample of the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 2,918), a large population-based study of children followed from birth through age 9. We employed a longitudinal framework and used measures of socioeconomic disadvantage beyond economic resources. Although the hypothesized FSM pathways were identified in the longitudinal model (e.g., economic pressure at age 1 was associated with maternal distress at age 3, maternal distress at age 3 was associated with parenting behaviors at age 5), the effects of socioeconomic disadvantage at childbirth on youth socioemotional outcomes at age 9 did not operate through all of the hypothesized mediators. In longitudinal change models that accounted for the stability in constructs, multiple indicators of socioeconomic disadvantage at childbirth were indirectly associated with youth externalizing behaviors at age 9 via either economic pressure at age 1 or changes in maternal warmth from ages 3 to 5. Greater economic pressure at age 1, increases in maternal distress from ages 1 to 3, and decreases/increases in maternal warmth/harshness from ages 3 to 5 were also directly associated with increases in externalizing behaviors from ages 5 to 9. Results provide partial support for the FSM across the first decade of life.

Childhood violence exposure and social deprivation are linked to adolescent threat and reward neural function.

BACKGROUND: Childhood adversity is, unfortunately, highly prevalent and strongly associated with later psychopathology. Recent theories posit that two dimensions of early adversity, threat and deprivation, have distinct effects on brain development. The current study evaluated whether violence exposure (threat) and social deprivation (deprivation) were associated with adolescent amygdala and ventral striatum activation, respectively, in a prospective, well-sampled, longitudinal cohort using a pre-registered, open science approach. METHODS: One hundred and sixty-seven adolescents from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study completed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scanning. Prospective longitudinal data from ages 3, 5 and 9 years were used to create indices of childhood violence exposure and social deprivation. We evaluated whether these dimensions were associated with adolescent brain function in response to threatening and rewarding faces. RESULTS: Childhood violence exposure was associated with decreased amygdala habituation (i.e. more sustained activation) and activation to angry faces in adolescence, whereas childhood social deprivation was associated with decreased ventral striatum activation to happy faces in adolescence. These associations held when adjusting for the other dimension of adversity (e.g., adjusting for social deprivation when examining associations with violence exposure), the interaction of the two dimensions of adversity, gender, internalizing psychopathology, and current life stress. CONCLUSIONS: Consistent with recent theories, different forms of early adversity were associated with region-specific differences in brain activation.

Association of Childhood Violence Exposure With Adolescent Neural Network Density.

Importance: Adverse childhood experiences are a public health issue with negative sequelae that persist throughout life. Current theories suggest that adverse childhood experiences reflect underlying dimensions (eg, violence exposure and social deprivation) with distinct neural mechanisms; however, research findings have been inconsistent, likely owing to variability in how the environment interacts with the brain. Objective: To examine whether dimensional exposure to childhood adversity is associated with person-specific patterns in adolescent resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC), defined as synchronized activity across brain regions when not engaged in a task. Design, Setting, and Participants: A sparse network approach in a large sample with substantial representation of understudied, underserved African American youth was used to conduct an observational, population-based longitudinal cohort study. A total of 183 adolescents aged 15 to 17 years from Detroit, Michigan; Toledo, Ohio; and Chicago, Illinois, who participated in the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study were eligible for inclusion. Environmental data from birth to adolescence were collected via telephone and in-person interviews, and neuroimaging data collected at a university lab. The study was conducted from February 1, 1998, to April 26, 2017, and data analysis was performed from January 3, 2019, to May 22, 2020. Exposures: Composite variables representing violence exposure and social deprivation created from primary caregiver reports on children at ages 3, 5, and 9 years. Main Outcomes and Measures: Resting-state functional connectivity person-specific network metrics (data-driven subgroup membership, density, and node degree) focused on connectivity among a priori regions of interest in 2 resting-state networks (salience network and default mode) assessed with functional magnetic resonance imaging. Results: Of the 183 eligible adolescents, 175 individuals (98 girls [56%]) were included in the analysis; mean (SD) age was 15.88 (0.53) years and 127 participants (73%) were African American. Adolescents with high violence exposure were 3.06 times more likely (95% CI, 1.17-8.92) to be in a subgroup characterized by high heterogeneity (few shared connections) and low network density (sparsity). Childhood violence exposure, but not social deprivation, was associated with reduced rsFC density (ß = -0.25; 95% CI, -0.41 to -0.05; P = .005), with fewer salience network connections (ß = -0.26; 95% CI, -0.43 to -0.08; P = .005) and salience network-default mode connections (ß = -0.20; 95% CI, -0.38 to -0.03; P = .02). Violence exposure was associated with node degree of right anterior insula (ß = -0.29; 95% CI, -0.47 to -0.12; P = .001) and left inferior parietal lobule (ß = -0.26; 95% CI, -0.44 to -0.09; P = .003). Conclusions and Relevance: The findings of this study suggest that childhood violence exposure is associated with adolescent neural network sparsity. A community-detection algorithm, blinded to child adversity, grouped youth exposed to heightened violence based only on patterns of rsFC. The findings may have implications for understanding how dimensions of adverse childhood experiences impact individualized neural development.

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

This article has been withdrawn: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy). This article has been withdrawn at the request of the editor and publisher. The publisher regrets that an error occurred which led to the premature publication of this paper. This error bears no reflection on the article or its authors. The publisher apologizes to the authors and the readers for this unfortunate error.

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.

Escaping poverty and securing middle class status: how race and socioeconomic status shape mobility prospects for African Americans during the transition to adulthood.

This article draws on extant research from the disciplines of psychology, sociology, and economics to identify linkages between individual, family, community, and structural factors related to social mobility for African Americans during the transition to adulthood. It considers how race and class together affect opportunities for social mobility through where African Americans live, whom they associate with, and how they are impacted by racial and class-related stigma. Of particular interest is social mobility as accomplished through academic achievement, educational attainment, employment, economic independence, and homeownership. Research on five issues is reviewed and discussed: (a) the unique vulnerabilities of newly upwardly mobile African Americans, (b) wealth as a source of inequality, (c) racism and discrimination, (d) the stigma associated with lower-class status, and (e) social and cultural capital. The article concludes with a summary and directions for future research.

How children and adolescents think about, make sense of, and respond to economic inequality: Why does it matter?

Research published in the special section documents how children's and adolescents' awareness and sensitivity to group-level exclusion, inequality of opportunity, and broader patterns of economic inequality in society influence and are associated with moral emotions, moral reasoning, and decisions about resource allocation. It also assesses the intersecting influence of societal hierarchies on youth's understanding of economic inequality and the socioemotional and behavioral correlates of their discernment of structural arrangements that produce inequality and marginalization. These advances in knowledge raise several interesting issues, among them (a) when during the life course explanations of poverty and distributive justice reasoning crystallize; (b) whether distinct developmental trajectories exist in these domains; (c) whether early patterns of moral emotions, reasoning, and decision-making shape interactions with less economically advantaged peers and predict subsequent attitudes and behavior pertaining to social justice issues; (d) the role of educational experiences and parental socialization in youth's understanding of structural causes for group inequalities; and (e) whether and why structural thinking about inequalities may be domain-specific (e.g., race, social class, income, gender). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Does endorsement of physical discipline matter? Assessing moderating influences on the maternal and child psychological correlates of physical discipline in African American families.

Using longitudinal data from a subsample of 890 African American families in the Child Development Supplement of the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, this study examined whether maternal endorsement of physical discipline moderates the link between (a) maternal psychological distress and spanking frequency and (b) spanking frequency and child depressive symptoms. As predicted, physical discipline administered by nonendorsing mothers was more strongly linked to maternal psychological distress than physical discipline administered by endorsing mothers. Also in keeping with the authors' hypothesis, the relation between spanking frequency and child-reported depressive symptoms was stronger for children of nonendorsing mothers than for children of endorsing mothers. In particular, the positive relation between physical discipline and children's depressive symptoms was significant only for children of nonendorsing mothers. These findings suggest that within-group variation in African American mothers' attitudes about physical discipline partially regulates the conditions under which these mothers use physical discipline and the probability that physical discipline contributes to depressive symptoms in children. Conclusions and implications for future research are discussed.