Peer-reviewed article
Dual ecological-cultural pathways of sociocultural environment and resting state functional connectivity among Hispanic adolescents in the ABCD Study
Angela R. Laird, Chloe Hampson, Micaela Lembo, Katherine L. Bottenhorn, Kirthana Sukumaran et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-sonnet-5-5This study looked at 236 Hispanic adolescents aged 12 to 14 in the US-based ABCD Study. It examined how neighbourhood and family sociocultural factors relate to patterns of resting-state brain connectivity. Two separate patterns were found: one linked to community conditions (child opportunity and neighbourhood disadvantage) and one linked to family culture (caregiver ethnic identity and heritage acculturation). The community-linked brain pattern was associated with lower respiratory functioning. The authors conclude that structural and culturally sustaining interventions are needed to promote health equity.
Key points
- Data came from 236 Hispanic adolescents aged 12 to 14 in the ABCD Study.
- A community pathway linked child opportunity and neighbourhood disadvantage to connectivity across the Cingulo-Opercular, Default, Dorsal Attention and Visual Networks.
- The community-related connectivity profile was associated with lower respiratory functioning, described as a marker of environmental stress.
- A family pathway linked caregiver ethnic identity and heritage acculturation to connectivity in the Default, Ventral Attention, Sensorimotor-Mouth and Visual Networks.
- Community and family pathways were distinct, diverging from traditional nested bioecodevelopmental assumptions.
Limitations
The abstract describes an observational association study with a small sample of Hispanic adolescents in the US, so it cannot show cause and effect or apply directly to other populations. It does not evaluate any intervention, and the abstract gives no effect sizes.
Abstract
Hispanic Americans face persistent health disparities rooted in complex sociocultural and bioecodevelopmental dynamics. Identifying early neurodevelopmental trajectories that confer risk or resilience during adolescence is critical for developing targeted health equity interventions. Grounded in the NIMHD Research Framework and bioecodevelopmental theory, data from 12- to 14-year-old Hispanic adolescents in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study were analyzed (n=236). Partial least squares correlation (PLSC) was used to evaluate multivariate associations between sociocultural measures, spanning individual, family, and community levels, and resting-state functional connectivity (rsFC) networks. Post hoc linear mixed-effects models examined how derived sociocultural-rsFC patterns predicted measures of physical and mental health, linking bioecodevelopmental patterns to adolescent well-being. PLSC revealed dual community- and family-level neural pathways of biological embedding, diverging from traditional nested bioecodevelopmental assumptions. The community pathway linked child opportunity and neighborhood disadvantage to connectivity across Cingulo-Opercular, Default, Dorsal Attention, Visual Networks. This community-rsFC profile was associated with lower respiratory functioning, reflecting an allostatic load marker of environmental stress. The family pathway linked caregiver ethnic identity and heritage acculturation to Default, Ventral Attention, Sensorimotor-Mouth, and Visual Networks connectivity, suggesting that the family system shapes neural systems underlying social attunement and identity formation. Structural community factors and familial culture impose distinct neurobiological demands on the adolescent connectome among Hispanic youth. Findings highlight respiratory health as a biological marker of environmental adversity and underscore the necessity of structural and culturally sustaining interventions to promote health equity among Hispanic youth.