1. Functional Brain Network Organization and Multidomain Resilience to Neighborhood Disadvantage in Youth.
- Author
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Bezek, Jessica L., Tillem, Scott, Suarez, Gabriela L., Burt, S. Alexandra, Vazquez, Alexandra Y., Michael, Cleanthis, Sripada, Chandra, Kump, Kelly L., and Hyde, Luke W.
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PSYCHOLOGICAL resilience , *RISK assessment , *COGNITIVE testing , *FUNCTIONAL connectivity , *RESEARCH funding , *TWINS , *POVERTY areas , *BEHAVIOR , *DEVELOPMENTAL disabilities , *TEENAGERS' conduct of life , *LARGE-scale brain networks , *NEIGHBORHOOD characteristics , *PATHOLOGICAL psychology , *CHILD behavior - Abstract
Though youth living in disadvantaged neighborhoods experience greater risk for poor behavioral and mental health outcomes, many go on to show resilience in the face of adversity. A few recent studies have identified neural markers of resilience in cognitive and affective brain networks, yet the broader network organization supporting resilience in youth remains unknown, particularly in relation to neighborhood disadvantage. Moreover, most studies have defined resilience as the absence of psychopathology, which does not consider growing evidence that resilience also includes positive outcomes across multiple domains (e.g., social, academic). We examined associations between brain network organization and multiple resilience domains in a sample of 708 twins (7–19 years old) recruited from neighborhoods with above-average poverty levels. Graph analysis on functional connectivity data from resting-state and task-based functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to characterize features of intrinsic whole-brain and network-level organization, from which we explored associations with resilience in three domains: psychological, social, and academic. Fewer connections between a brain network involved in self-referential processing (i.e., default mode network) and the subcortical system were associated with greater social resilience. Further, greater whole-brain functional integration (i.e., efficiency) was associated with better psychological resilience among youth with relatively lower levels of cumulative adversity exposure. Alternatively, lower whole-brain efficiency and higher whole-brain robustness to disruption (i.e., assortativity) were associated with greater psychological and social resilience among youth with relatively higher levels of cumulative adversity. These findings advance support for multidimensional resilience models and reveal distinct neural mechanisms supporting resilience to neighborhood disadvantage across specific domains in youth. Public Significance Statement: The present study used brain imaging to examine how the organization of information flow throughout the brain relates to resilience to neighborhood disadvantage in youth. Results identified three domains of resilience (i.e., psychological, social, and academic), which showed unique associations with patterns of information flow across brain networks and the entire brain. This work bridges advancements in resilience theory with neuroscience to identify brain markers of resilience among youth marginalized by the socioeconomic status of their neighborhood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2024
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