Abstract
Socioeconomic status (SES) has a powerful influence on cognitive, social and brain development. Children from low-SES backgrounds show poor executive function (EF). However, it is unclear if there is a SES-dependent disparity in functional brain development. The present study examined whether the SES of preschool children (N = 93) is associated with prefrontal activation during cognitive shifting tasks as measured by near-infrared spectroscopy. Low-SES children did not show activation in lateral prefrontal regions during the tasks, whereas middle- and high-SES children showed prefrontal activations, although no differences were found in terms of behavioural performance. These results suggest that SES can affect the functional development of the prefrontal regions. In this study, we discuss the practical implications of the results.
Highlights
Socioeconomic status (SES) is an important factor influencing cognitive, social and brain development
Research involving animal models and older children have revealed that environmental deprivation or poverty can impair functional development of the prefrontal cortex[20,24]
Structural MRI studies in young children have shown that cortical thickness in prefrontal regions and macro- and microstructural properties of white matter tracts implicated in executive function (EF) differ depending on SES23,43
Summary
Socioeconomic status (SES) is an important factor influencing cognitive, social and brain development. FMRI studies found that lower-SES, school-aged children and adolescents showed different patterns of prefrontal activation than higher-SES children in tasks which required executive control[5,24,25] It is still unknown whether SES influences functional brain development during early childhood. Event-related potential (ERP) has limited spatial resolution and provides an indirect index of the prefrontal development; whether the prefrontal activations are affected by childhood poverty is unclear To address this important issue, we examined the prefrontal activation patterns of 93 preschool children of varying SES during a cognitive shifting task using near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) and evaluated the statistical relationships among task performance, prefrontal activation and SES. Few studies examined the effects of SES on cognitive shifting[2], we hypothesised that SES would affect prefrontal activations in young children
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