Prenatal socioeconomic status and social support are associated with neonatal brain morphology, toddler language and psychiatric symptoms

ABSTRACT

Few studies have assessed the association of parental socioeconomic status (SES) with brain measures in neonates, at a time when exposure to the postnatal environment is minimal. Social support may buffer the adverse consequences of SES, and has been associated with better cognitive – emotional development in children. We studied the association of prenatal SES and social support with neonatal brain structure, and toddler cognition, and psychiatric symptoms. In a sample of 37 healthy neonates, we correlated a measure of SES and marital/partner status (an index of social support) with morphological features of the cerebral surface measured on high-resolution MRI scans between the 1^st – 6^th weeks of postnatal life. We then assessed how SES relates to cognitive and behavioral outcomes at age 24-months. We found that neonates born to mothers with lower SES had greater local volumes at the surface of the right occipital lobe, left temporal pole, and left inferior frontal and anterior cingulate regions. Partner status moderated the associations of SES on neonatal brain morphology. Lower SES was associated with poorer language scores and less severe ADHD and ODD symptoms. In summary, SES was associated with neonatal brain structure and language and behavioral outcomes at toddler age. Future studies with a greater sample size and longitudinal MRI scans will help to determine whether prenatal SES continues to relate to early brain development in the same or different brain regions.

KEYWORDS:

• Neonate
• brain
• morphology
• SES
• language

Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the NIDA R01DA017820 (BSP and TSR), NIMH P50MH090966 (BSP), and NIMH T32MH016434 (BSP and MNS), National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences Grants KL2RR024157 and KL2TR000081 (MNS), National Institute of Child Health and Development Grant HD092589-02 (MNS), and MJS Foundation (Whitaker Scholar Developmental Neuropsychiatry program; MNS). Special thanks to Juan Sanchez-Peña, Siddhant Sawardekar, I-Chin Chiang, Deborah Jaspen, Beth Jewett, Dana Serino, Samantha Garavelli, Kirwan Walsh, David Semanek, Kathleen Durkin, Erica Lambeth, and Nelson Chen for their invaluable assistance.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/09297049.2019.1648641.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [HD092589-02]; National Institute of Mental Health [P50MH090966,T32MH016434]; National Institute on Drug Abuse [R01DA017820]; MJS Foundation; National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences [KL2RR024157, KL2TR000081];