Low household income and neurodevelopment from infancy through adolescence

Abstract

Despite advancements in the study of brain maturation at different developmental epochs, no work has linked the significant neural changes occurring just after birth to the subtler refinements in the brain occurring in childhood and adolescence. We aimed to provide a comprehensive picture regarding foundational neurodevelopment and examine systematic differences by family income. Using a nationally representative longitudinal sample of 486 infants, children, and adolescents (age 5 months to 20 years) from the NIH MRI Study of Normal Brain Development and leveraging advances in statistical modeling, we mapped developmental trajectories for the four major cortical lobes and constructed charts that show the statistical distribution of gray matter and reveal the considerable variability in regional volumes and structural change, even among healthy, typically developing children. Further, the data reveal that significant structural differences in gray matter development for children living in or near poverty, first detected during childhood (age 2.5–6.5 years), evolve throughout adolescence.