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Updated: Aug 16, 2025
Cortical Source Analysis of High-Density EEG Recordings in Children
Published on: June 30, 2014
Socioeconomic disparities in sleep duration are associated with cortical thickness in children
Melissa Hansen1, Katrina R Simon2, Jordan Strack1
1Department of Psychology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, USA.
Insights
Socioeconomic factors influence children's sleep duration, which in turn affects brain development. Family routines play a key role in mediating this relationship, impacting neural structure in children.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Psychology
- Pediatrics
Background:
- Disrupted sleep is linked to poor academic and mental health outcomes in children.
- Socioeconomic disparities may influence brain morphometry through sleep, but this link is not well understood.
- Understanding these connections is crucial for addressing developmental inequalities.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate associations between socioeconomic factors, sleep duration, and brain morphometry in children.
- To examine the mediating roles of sleep environment and family routines in these relationships.
- To clarify how socioeconomic status impacts neural development via sleep.
Main Methods:
- Study included 94 children aged 5-9 from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds.
- Parental reports collected data on children's sleep duration, environment, and family routines.
- Structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) analyzed cortical thickness, surface area, and amygdala/hippocampal volumes.
Main Results:
- Lower income and parental education correlated with shorter weekday sleep duration.
- Shorter sleep was associated with reduced cortical thickness and smaller amygdala volume.
- Family routines mediated the link between socioeconomic factors and sleep duration.
Conclusions:
- Sleep duration is a mechanism linking socioeconomic status to neural development in children.
- Family routines are important mediators in this pathway.
- Findings highlight sleep as a target for interventions to mitigate socioeconomic disparities in brain development.
Introduction:
Disrupted sleep has been consistently linked with lower academic achievement and worse mental health in children. Less is understood about sleep as a potential factor underlying socioeconomic differences in brain morphometry in children. The goals of this study were to investigate the associations among socioeconomic factors, sleep duration, and brain morphometry in children, and to examine the roles of the sleep environment and family routines in these associations.
Methods:
Participants were 5- to 9-year-old children from socioeconomically diverse families (N = 94; 61% female). Parents reported on children's weekday and weekend sleep durations, sleep environment, and family routines. High-resolution, T1-weighted structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data were acquired. Analyses focused on cortical thickness, cortical surface area, and amygdala and hippocampal volume.
Results:
Results indicated that lower family income-to-needs ratio and parental education were significantly associated with shorter weekday sleep duration in children. Shorter weekday sleep duration was significantly associated with reduced thickness in the left middle temporal, right postcentral, and right superior frontal cortices and smaller basolateral but not centromedial amygdala volume. Family routines significantly mediated the associations of family income-to-needs ratio and parental education with weekday sleep duration in children.
Conclusion:
These results contribute to our understanding of sleep factors as proximal mechanisms through which socioeconomic context may alter neural development during childhood.
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