[P08.038] Functional Neuroanatomic Differences between Low and High Socio-Economic Status: An Emotional Visual fMRI Study

Daniela Guilliam, Michael E. Silverman, Zohn Rosen, Peter Muennig, Martin Goldstein, New York, NY

OBJECTIVE: To use fMRI to explore neural activation differences between low versus high socioeconomic status (SES) subjects during negative emotional visual stimulus processing. BACKGROUND: Low SES is associated with increased morbidity. Material deprivations account for only part of this association, prompting investigation of other ways by which SES impacts health. One candidate mechanism is low SES-related psychological stress, which can yield autonomically- and neuroendocrinologically-mediated deleterious somatic effects. Such a mechanism would build upon insights derived from animal model and human disease states related to environmental stress (i.e., conceptualizing low SES as a chronic stressor). Neuroimaging has begun to elucidate the neural circuitry involved in stress transduction, and identify neural substrates of pathologic responses to acute psychological stressors (e.g., PTSD). DESIGN/METHODS: 15 African-American subjects (8 low /7 high SES) underwent EPI-BOLD functional MR imaging while performing an activation paradigm consisting of serially-presented positive, neutral, negative and poverty-related visual stimuli. Subjects were instructed to judge whether the visual stimulus is a meaningful or scrambled image using a 2-alternative button press. Contrast of relevance, negative versus neutral x low versus high SES, was analysed via FSL. Regions of interest were defined by clusters of >30 contiguous voxels in which there was a significant difference in brain activity across conditions (Z>2.81, P<.005 two-tailed). RESULTS: Relative to high SES, low SES subjects demonstrated greater occipital and occipito-temporal activation while incidentally-processing negatively-valenced visual stimuli. Other significant regional activation differences included left pre-central gyrus and left parietal areas. CONCLUSIONS/RELEVANCE: Low SES subjects demonstrated significantly greater primary and secondary visual cortical activation, and greater primary motor outflow, during incidental processing of negatively-valenced visual stimuli. These results suggest enhanced visual processing of, and augmented motor response to, negative stimuli, thereby offering a potential neural mechanism mediating the transduction of, and differential efferent response to, environmental stressors within low SES. Supported by: Grant MO1-RR-00071 from the NCRR.
Category - Behavioral Neurology
SubCategory - Imaging

Thursday, April 17, 2008 4:00 PM

Poster Sessions VIII: Behavioral Neurology: Frontal Function and Imaging (4:00 PM-7:00 PM)

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