Relative brain age SES and anxiety
Cohen et al. (2023) published “Relative Brain Age is Associated with Socioeconomic Status and Anxiety/Depression Problems in Youth” in Developmental Psychology. Here are the edited abstract and impact statements:
Brain age, a measure of biological aging in the brain, has been linked to psychiatric illness, principally in adult populations. Components of socioeconomic status (SES) associate with differences in brain structure and psychiatric risk across the lifespan. This study aimed to investigate the influence of SES on brain aging in childhood and adolescence, a period of rapid neurodevelopment and peak onset for many psychiatric disorders. We reanalyzed data from the Healthy Brain Network to examine the influence of SES components (occupational prestige, public assistance enrollment, parent education, and household income-to-needs ratio [INR]) on relative brain age (RBA). Analyses included 470 youth (5–17 years; 61.3% men), self-identifying as White (55%), African American (15%), Hispanic (9%), or multiracial (17.2%). Household income was 3.95 ± 2.33 (mean ± SD) times the federal poverty threshold. RBA quantified differences between chronological age and brain age using covariation patterns of morphological features and total volumes. We also examined associations between RBA and psychiatric symptoms (Child Behavior Checklist [CBCL]). Models covaried for sex, scan location, and parent psychiatric diagnoses. In a linear regression, lower RBA is associated with lower parent occupational prestige (p = .01), lower public assistance enrollment (p = .03), and more parent psychiatric diagnoses (p = .01), but not parent education or INR. Lower parent occupational prestige (p = .02) and lower RBA (p = .04) are associated with higher CBCL anxious/depressed scores. Our findings underscore the importance of including SES components in developmental brain research. Delayed brain aging may represent a potential biological pathway from SES to psychiatric risk.
The present study suggests that specific components of socioeconomic status (SES), namely lower parent occupational prestige, are associated with delayed brain aging and increased anxiety/depression symptomology in youth. These findings point to age-related processes in the brain as a potential pathway from SES to anxiety/depression, informing future longitudinal research and intervention efforts.
Earlier research by Kathryn Noble (2016), published in Psychological Science Agenda, “found that both parental educational attainment and family income accounted for differences in the surface area, or size of the ‘nooks and crannies’ of the cerebral cortex. These associations were found across much of the brain, but were particularly pronounced in areas that support language and self-regulation — two of the very skills that have been repeatedly documented to show large differences along socioeconomic lines.” Consistent with Cohen et al., her work “suggests that family socioeconomic circumstance may moderate this trajectory. Specifically, at lower levels of family SES, we observed relatively steep age-related decreases in cortical thickness earlier in childhood, and subsequent leveling off during adolescence. In contrast, at higher levels of family SES, we observed more gradual age-related reductions in cortical thickness through at least late adolescence. We speculated that these findings may reflect an abbreviated period of cortical thinning in lower SES environments, relative to a more prolonged period of cortical thinning in higher SES environments. It is possible that socioeconomic disadvantage is a proxy for experiences that narrow the sensitive period, or time window for certain aspects of brain development that are malleable to environmental influences, thereby accelerating maturation (Tottenham, 2015).”
The Cohen et al. study is impressive in the cultural diversity of its sample and the larger number of males than females (a rarity in research). While most professionals don’t have access to the methodologies used in these studies, this work highlights the importance of including parent educational attainment and SES in data collection at the outset of treatment.