SES, Childhood Experience, and The Neural Bases of Learning

描述（申请人提供）：本研究旨在了解社会经济地位（SES）、早期生活经验与青少年学习之间的关系。先前的研究表明，学习能力与社会经济地位呈正相关，初步研究表明，童年经历对海马体发育的影响可能部分解释了这一点。本研究将通过考察不同类型学习和不同神经系统的学习能力差异的范围和限制，并评估其与早期经验（包括压力、压力缓冲父母养育和相关结构）的关系，来检验有关SES学习能力差异的性质和原因的假设。这些以实验室为基础的措施与学生在学校学习的关系也将被调查。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行为任务，以评估不同形式的记忆；(b)记忆系统的结构和功能神经影像学研究；(c)从青少年参与者的纵向研究中前瞻性地收集童年经历和SES数据。这项研究与NIH使命的相关性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，以及通过应用记忆、压力和早期经验的认知神经科学的见解来保护和培养处于危险中的青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.