Citation

Westerman HB, Suarez GL, Richmond-Rakerd LS, Nusslock R, Klump KL, Burt SA, Hyde LW. Soc. Cogn. Affect. Neurosci. 2024; ePub(ePub): ePub.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2024, Oxford University Press)

DOI

10.1093/scan/nsae029

PMID

38619118

Abstract

A growing literature links socioeconomic disadvantage and adversity to brain function, including disruptions in reward processing. Less research has examined exposure to community violence as a specific adversity related to differences in reward-related brain activation, despite the prevalence of community violence exposure for those living in disadvantaged contexts. The current study tested whether exposure to community violence was associated with reward-related ventral striatum activation after accounting for familial factors associated with differences in reward-related activation (e.g., parenting, family income). Moreover, we tested whether exposure to community violence is a mechanism linking socioeconomic disadvantage to reward-related activation in the ventral striatum. We utilized data from 444 adolescent twins sampled from birth records and residing in neighborhoods with above-average levels of poverty. Exposure to community violence was associated with greater reward-related ventral striatum activation, and the association remained after accounting for family-level markers of disadvantage. We identified an indirect pathway in which socioeconomic disadvantage predicted greater reward-related activation via greater exposure to community violence, over and above family-level adversity. These findings highlight the unique impact of community violence exposure on reward processing and provide a mechanism through which socioeconomic disadvantage may shape brain function.

Language: en

Keywords

brain; community violence; developmental neuroscience; neuroimaging; poverty; reward