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Socioeconomic disparities affect prefrontal function in children

Mark M Kishiyama1, W Thomas Boyce, Amy M Jimenez

  • 1University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. mmkishiyama@berkeley.edu

Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
|August 30, 2008
PubMed

Insights

Children from low socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds show altered brain activity in prefrontal regions. This neurophysiological evidence links social inequalities to impaired cognitive functions in children.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Sociology

Background:

  • Social inequalities significantly impact child health and development.
  • Low socioeconomic status (LSES) is linked to poorer academic achievement and behavioral impairments in prefrontal function.
  • The direct neural correlates of socioeconomic disparity on brain activity remain largely unexplored.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the influence of socioeconomic status on direct measures of neural activity in children.
  • To provide electrophysiological evidence of altered prefrontal function in LSES children.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized electrophysiological measures to assess brain activity.
  • Compared prefrontal-dependent cognitive measures between children from low and high socioeconomic status (SES) backgrounds.

Main Results:

  • LSES children exhibited reduced prefrontal-dependent electrophysiological measures of attention compared to high SES (HSES) children.
  • The observed pattern of reduced attention in LSES children resembles that seen in individuals with lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) damage.

Conclusions:

  • Social inequalities are associated with neurophysiological alterations in prefrontal cortex (PFC) function in LSES children.
  • Factors such as stress and limited cognitive stimulation in LSES environments may contribute to these findings.
  • Interventions targeting specific prefrontal processes could benefit LSES children.

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