New research suggests that socioeconomic hardship during childhood leaves children vulnerable to lower cognitive ability in adolescence and increased trait anxiety during adulthood. The findings, published in the journal Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, further suggest that these effects are driven by the recruitment of the right lateral prefrontal cortex.
Growing up in poverty can have negative repercussions on mental health. For example, children who grow up in socioeconomic deprivation demonstrate lower cognitive ability and report higher trait anxiety as young adults. Researchers Pavla Čermáková and her team launched a study to investigate this interplay between early socioeconomic difficulty, cognitive ability, and trait anxiety and to shed light on the neural mechanism behind these relationships.
“I have always found fascinating how early life influences our mental health when we are adults. I see a huge opportunity for prevention of later mental disorders if we focus on what is happening in the earliest stages of human life,” Čermáková, an associate professor at Charles University in Prague and head of the Department of Epidemiology at the Second Faculty of Medicine.
Čermáková and her team analyzed data from a larger study called the European Longitudinal Study of Pregnancy and Childhood. The current analysis focused on data from 54 Czech children who were born in 1991/1992 and who participated in follow-up studies throughout their adolescence and young adulthood.
At ages 6 months and 18 months, the children’s mothers answered questionnaires that included a measure of early-life socioeconomic deprivation (ELSD). At age 13, the youth participated in a sub-study that included an assessment of cognitive ability, and at ages 23/24 they participated in a neuroimaging study that included functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and a measure of trait anxiety.
The researchers found that children who grew up with worse socioeconomic deprivation went on to have lower cognitive ability at age 13. And youth with reduced cognitive ability at age 13 had higher trait anxiety at ages 23/24.
Results from the fMRI study revealed that lower trait anxiety was associated with increased functional connectivity between the right lateral prefrontal cortex (LPFC) and a cluster of brain areas. These regions included the left precentral gyrus, the left postcentral gyrus, and the superior frontal gyrus. Mediation analysis further revealed that this increased functional connectivity mediated the link between reduced cognitive ability and increased trait anxiety.
“Growing up in households that face socioeconomic difficulties may have long-term negative consequences on one’s cognitive ability and mental health. These early experiences are even mirrored in how our brain functions decades later,” Čermáková told PsyPost.
Interestingly, the link between cognitive ability in adolescence and trait anxiety in early adulthood was stronger among children who experienced worse socioeconomic deprivation. The study authors suggest that greater cognitive ability might reflect a “higher cognitive reserve” that offers resilience against the hardships of poverty. “Possibly, these individuals could be more successful in finding solutions for stressful situations or learn more quickly how to avoid them,” the authors write. “It is documented that children with a higher cognitive ability regain functioning in the face of adversity easier than children with lower cognitive ability (Garmezy, 1993).”
In line with emerging evidence from previous studies, the neuroimaging results suggest that the somatic brain network is implicated in trait anxiety. “We speculate that higher cognitive ability and the associated increase in functional connectivity between both somatic and prefrontal brain regions during rest could inhibit the activity of right LPFC and protect against development of trait anxiety,” Čermáková and colleagues say.
The study was limited by a small sample size and evidence of selective dropout from the original study population. “It would be good if our findings are confirmed in a larger study and in a different population,” Čermáková said.
Nevertheless, the findings suggest that growing up in poverty can negatively impact mental health and cognitive ability in the long term. The study also presents a possible neural mechanism for this link.
The study, “Socioeconomic and cognitive roots of trait anxiety in young adults”, was authored by Pavla Čermáková, Adam Chlapečka, Lenka Andrýsková, Milan Brázdil, and Klára Marečková.