Katharina Buczek
“The effects of household socioeconomic resources on functional connectivity were massively distributed throughout youths’ brains,” explained Chandra Sripada, the study’s lead author.
“We did not see the localization of effects in a discrete location or specific brain circuit. Instead, there were relatively tiny effects distributed throughout the brain, though when these individual effects aggregated together, they constitute a strong, reliably detected signal.”
Finally, the team studied the socioeconomic resources present in each child’s household to come up with a composite measure. During this examination, the researchers paid close attention to three socioeconomic factors: household income, parental education, and neighborhood resource levels.
It was at this point in the study that one specific factor– parental education– jumped out at the team.
The researchers went on to analyze a subset of the participants, which included over three thousand and two hundred children, to understand why parental education altered children’s brain connectivity.
They ultimately found that parents who had higher levels of education often practiced and engaged their children in more enrichment activities at home– such as reading, visiting museums, and fostering imaginative thought.
Then, their children were more likely to score higher on cognitive function tests and perform better in school.
“Based on these results, we see parental education as potentially an important part of more complex pathways by which socioeconomic disparities get ‘under the skin’ and shape the developing brain,” said Mary Heitzeg, the study’s senior author.
This study marks the largest-ever inquiry into how socioeconomic factors impact adolescent brain development. And the findings could have widespread effects.
According to the Children’s Defense Fund, nearly one in seven children U.S. children– or ten million– were living in poverty in 2019.
Seventy-one percent of these children were children of color.
