Citation
Jorgensen, Nathan A.; Muscatell, Keely A.; McCormick, Ethan M.; Prinstein, Mitchell J.; Lindquist, Kristen A.; & Telzer, Eva H. (2023). Neighborhood Disadvantage, Race/Ethnicity, and Neural Sensitivity to Social Threat and Reward among Adolescents. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 18(1), nsac053. PMCID: PMC9949505Abstract
Experiences within one's social environment shape neural sensitivity to threatening and rewarding social cues. However, in racialized societies like the U.S., youth from minoritized racial/ethnic backgrounds can have different experiences and perceptions within neighborhoods that share similar characteristics. The current study examined how neighborhood disadvantage intersects with racial/ethnic background in relation to neural sensitivity to social cues. A racially diverse (59 Hispanic/Latine, 48 White, 37 Black/African-American, 15 multi-racial, 6 other) and primarily low to middle SES sample of 165 adolescents (88 female; Mage = 12.89) completed a social incentive delay task while undergoing fMRI scanning. We tested for differences in the association between neighborhood disadvantage and neural responses to social threat and reward cues across racial/ethnic groups. For threat processing, compared to White youth, neighborhood disadvantage was related to greater neural activation in regions involved in salience detection (e.g., ACC) for Black youth, and regions involved in mentalizing (e.g., TPJ) for Latine youth. For reward processing, neighborhood disadvantage was related to greater brain activation in reward, salience, and mentalizing regions for Black youth only. This study offers a novel exploration of diversity within adolescent neural development and important insights into our understanding of how social environments may "get under the skull" differentially across racial/ethnic groups.URL
http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsac053Reference Type
Journal ArticleYear Published
2023Journal Title
Social Cognitive and Affective NeuroscienceAuthor(s)
Jorgensen, Nathan A.Muscatell, Keely A.
McCormick, Ethan M.
Prinstein, Mitchell J.
Lindquist, Kristen A.
Telzer, Eva H.
Article Type
RegularPMCID
PMC9949505Continent/Country
United States of AmericaState
NonspecificRace/Ethnicity
HispanicBlack
White