Beginning as early as preschool, and persisting throughout childhood and beyond, individuals of low SES perform below their middle class counterparts on a variety of psychometric tests. The cognitive disparities between poor and middle class children are robust, persistent over time, and have consequences for future life success. The research proposed here seeks to characterize the nature of the disparity in terms of the underlying systems of the mind and brain affected by poverty. Additional goals are to understand the relation of these underlying effects to both antecedent early life experiences and resultant future life trajectories. Specifically, the theoretical framework and methods of Cognitive Neuroscience will be used to address several basic questions about the relation between poverty and cognitive development. First and foremost: What underlying systems of the developing mind and brain are impacted by poverty? This project will partition the known cognitive disparities, previously assessed with the relatively complex tasks of standardized psychological assessment, into seven key neurocognitive systems: Parietal/spatial, Occipito-temporal/pattern vision, Temporal/memory, and Fronto-temporal/language, Lateral prefrontal/working memory, Ventromedial prefrontal/reward processing, and Anterior cingulated/conflict monitoring. This will be accomplished with behavioral testing and functional neuroimaging of a cohort of carefully screened middle school-aged low SES children and a middle SES comparison group. Subsequently, the results of the neurocognitive analysis will be used in the search for causal mechanisms, drawing upon a rich database of information about the life experiences of the low SES children. Neurocognitive systems mediating resilience and successful adolescence will also be sought.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development (NICHD)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01HD043078-04
Application #
7235728
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZRG1-SSS-C (03))
Program Officer
Freund, Lisa S
Project Start
2004-06-01
Project End
2009-05-31
Budget Start
2007-06-01
Budget End
2009-05-31
Support Year
4
Fiscal Year
2007
Total Cost
$244,091
Indirect Cost
Name
University of Pennsylvania
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
042250712
City
Philadelphia
State
PA
Country
United States
Zip Code
19104
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