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Association between Neighborhood Opportunity, Cognitive Function, and Brain Structure in Youth

Poster No:

996

Submission Type:

Late-Breaking Abstract Submission

Authors:

Lan Zhou¹, Tianying Cai², Ka Ip²

Institutions:

¹University of Groningen, Groningen, NA, ²University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN

First Author:

Lan Zhou
University of Groningen
Groningen, NA

Co-Author(s):

Tianying Cai
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN

Ka Ip
University of Minnesota
Minneapolis, MN

Introduction:

Access to essential neighborhood opportunities (e.g., quality education, nutritious foods, clean air) is critical for development, yet their influence on neurocognition remains unclear. Leveraging data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (n = 10,483; ages 9-10), we examined associations between neighborhood opportunity, cognitive function, and brain structure.

Methods:

Neighborhood opportunity was measured by the Childhood Opportunity Index (COI 2.0), which assesses educational, health/environmental, and social/economic opportunities. Cognitive function was measured via the NIH Toolbox Cognition Battery, and T1-weighted imaging providing brain structural measures.

Results:

Youth living in higher-opportunity neighborhoods exhibited better performance across all cognitive measures across all cognitive measures (β=0.11–0.37, ps <0.001), and larger whole-brain gray matter volume (β = 0.10, p<0.001), surface area (β=0.06, p<0.001), cortical thickness (β=0.11, p<0.001), and specific brain volume regions implicated in cognitive function. These associations persisted after controlling for demographic (e.g., sex, study site) and household familyfactors (e.g., material hardship, family conflict and parental education). Relative weight analyses revealed that socio-economic neighborhood opportunities had the strongest influence on cognitive function (33.35-51.56%) and brain measures (48.95%-60.98%), though both educational and health/environmental opportunities also contributed uniquely explained variance. a significant proportion of the variance are uniquely explained by both educational and health/environmental opportunities. Structural equation modeling found that whole-brain gray matter volume and surface area mediated the relationship between COI and cognitive outcomes at 2-year follow-up, with regional effects in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex.

·Figure 1. Association bettween neighborhood opportunity, and neurocognition and brain strcuture

·Figure 2. The relative contribution of different neighborhood opportunity domains to neurocognition and brain structure

Conclusions:

Neighborhood opportunity is a critical factor shaping neurocognitive development, above and beyond householdfamily-level indicators. Findings highlight the importance of using an asset-based approach to understand how multiple neighborhood resources may foster neurocognitive development and advance health equity for youth.

Higher Cognitive Functions:

Executive Function, Cognitive Control and Decision Making ²

Lifespan Development:

Early life, Adolescence, Aging ¹

Neuroanatomy, Physiology, Metabolism and Neurotransmission:

Cortical Anatomy and Brain Mapping

Keywords:

Cognition

Cortex

PEDIATRIC

^1|2Indicates the priority used for review

Abstract Information

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Healthy subjects only or patients (note that patient studies may also involve healthy subjects):

Healthy subjects

Was this research conducted in the United States?

Yes

Are you Internal Review Board (IRB) certified? Please note: Failure to have IRB, if applicable will lead to automatic rejection of abstract.

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Were any human subjects research approved by the relevant Institutional Review Board or ethics panel? NOTE: Any human subjects studies without IRB approval will be automatically rejected.

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Not applicable

Please indicate which methods were used in your research:

Structural MRI

For human MRI, what field strength scanner do you use?

3.0T

Which processing packages did you use for your study?

Free Surfer

Provide references using APA citation style.

Hackman, D. A., Cserbik, D., Chen, J. C., Berhane, K., Minaravesh, B., McConnell, R., & Herting, M. M. (2021). Association of local variation in neighborhood disadvantage in metropolitan areas with youth neurocognition and brain structure. JAMA pediatrics, 175(8), e210426-e210426.

Noelke, C., McArdle, N., Baek, M., Huntington, N., Huber, R., Hardy, E., & Acevedo-Garcia, D. (2020). Child Opportunity Index 2.0. Published online.

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