Family Socioeconomic Status and Children’s Nucleus Accumbens Response to Loss Anticipation: Racial Differences

Abstract

Objective: Socioeconomic Status (SES) and race (as a proxy of racism) may have overlapping effects on substance use and related brain mechanisms such as nucleus accumbens function. Therefore, we hypothesized that nucleus accumbens function might be jointly affected by race and SES. Materials and Methods: The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study baseline data was used for this cross-sectional study. The study included 7791 children between the ages of 9 and 10. The independent variable was parental education as our SES indicator of interest. The moderator was race as a social factor rather than a biological factor. The confounders included sex, age, ethnicity, and family structure. The outcome variable was nucleus accumbens function measured using functional MRI (fMRI). We used mixedeffects regression models with and without race by SES interactions to analyze the data. Results: Children with higher parental education had lower nucleus accumbens function during loss anticipation (conceptualized as a risk factor of substance use). However, this effect was larger for White children than it was for Black children. Thus, the effects of race and SES on nucleus accumbens function were multiplicative rather than additive. Conclusion: Children’s race and SES have implications for nucleus accumbens function. The results are important because nucleus accumbens function may correlate with future substance use. However, SES effects on nucleus accumbens function may differ by race, explaining why the risk of substance use remains high in high SES Black youth.