Family Poverty Affects the Rate of Human Infant Brain Growth
Family Poverty Affects the Rate of Human Infant Brain Growth
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DOI：
10.1371/journal.pone.0080954
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发表时间：
2013-12-11
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Pollak, Seth D.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Hanson, Jamie L.;Hair, Nicole;Pollak, Seth D.
生活在贫困中的儿童在各个领域面临非常高的问题风险，包括学校教育，行为规范和健康。认知功能的各个方面，如信息处理，可能是这类问题的基础。贫穷如何影响这些认知过程背后的大脑功能？在这里，我们通过观察和分析来自不同经济背景的5个月至4岁幼儿（n = 77）的大脑发育的重复测量来解决这个问题。在这样做的过程中，我们有机会观察儿童开始经历贫困影响时大脑发育的变化。这些儿童接受了MRI扫描，受试者纵向完成1至7次扫描。203次MRI扫描被分为不同的组织类型，使用一种专门设计用于分析婴儿大脑数据的新型图像处理算法。检查总灰质、白色和大脑（总灰质和白色的总和）体积沿着额叶、顶叶、颞叶和枕叶的体积。来自低收入家庭的婴儿的灰质数量较少，灰质是处理信息和执行行动的关键组织。额叶和顶叶都存在这些差异。在白色物质、颞叶体积或枕叶体积方面未检测到差异。此外，大脑发育的差异因社会经济地位（SES）而异，来自低收入家庭的儿童在婴儿期和幼儿期的发育轨迹较慢。体积差异与破坏性行为问题的出现有关。
Living in poverty places children at very high risk for problems across a variety of domains, including schooling, behavioral regulation, and health. Aspects of cognitive functioning, such as information processing, may underlie these kinds of problems. How might poverty affect the brain functions underlying these cognitive processes? Here, we address this question by observing and analyzing repeated measures of brain development of young children between five months and four years of age from economically diverse backgrounds (n = 77). In doing so, we have the opportunity to observe changes in brain growth as children begin to experience the effects of poverty. These children underwent MRI scanning, with subjects completing between 1 and 7 scans longitudinally. Two hundred and three MRI scans were divided into different tissue types using a novel image processing algorithm specifically designed to analyze brain data from young infants. Total gray, white, and cerebral (summation of total gray and white matter) volumes were examined along with volumes of the frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital lobes. Infants from low-income families had lower volumes of gray matter, tissue critical for processing of information and execution of actions. These differences were found for both the frontal and parietal lobes. No differences were detected in white matter, temporal lobe volumes, or occipital lobe volumes. In addition, differences in brain growth were found to vary with socioeconomic status (SES), with children from lower-income households having slower trajectories of growth during infancy and early childhood. Volumetric differences were associated with the emergence of disruptive behavioral problems.