SES, Childhood Experience, and The Neural Bases of Learning

描述(申请人提供)：本研究试图了解青少年的社会经济地位(SES)、早期生活经历和学习之间的关系。先前的研究表明，学习能力与SES呈正相关，初步研究表明，童年经历对海马体发育的影响可能是部分原因。本研究将通过检查不同学习类型和不同神经系统的范围和限制，并评估其与早期经验的关系，包括压力、缓冲压力的父母养育和相关结构，来检验关于SES学习能力差异的性质和原因的假设。还将调查这些以实验室为基础的措施与学生在校学习的关系。将使用的方法包括(A)在认知心理学和认知神经科学的多重记忆系统框架内开发的用于评估不同形式记忆的行为任务，(B)记忆系统的结构和功能神经成像研究，以及(C)从青少年参与者的纵向研究中前瞻性地收集关于童年经历和SES的数据。这项研究与NIH的使命相关，在于学习在所有美国人的学术、职业和个人生活中所起的关键作用，以及通过应用认知神经科学中关于记忆、压力和早期经验的见解来保存和培养高危青少年的学习能力的前景。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): This research seeks to understand the relations among socioeconomic status (SES), early life experience, and learning in adolescents. Previous research has shown that learning ability is positively correlated with SES, and preliminary studies suggest that the effects of childhood experience on hippocampal development may in part account for this. The present research will test hypotheses concerning the nature and causes of the SES disparity in learning ability by examining its scope and limits across different types of learning and different neural systems, and assessing its relation to early experience, including stress, stress-buffering parental nurturing and related constructs. The relation of these laboratory-based measures to student learning in school will also be investigated. The methods to be used include (a) behavioral tasks, developed within the multiple memory systems framework of cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience, to assess different forms of memory, (b) structural and functional neuroimaging studies of memory systems and (c) prospectively collected data on childhood experience and SES from a longitudinal study of adolescent participants. The relevance of this research to the mission of NIH lies in the crucial role played by learning in the academic, occupational and personal lives of all Americans, and the prospect of preserving and fostering the learning ability in at-risk youth though the application of insights from the cognitive neuroscience of memory, stress, and early experience.