Associations Between Neighborhood Resources and Youth’s Response to Reward Omission in a Task Modeling Negatively Biased Environments

ObjectiveNeighborhoods provide essential resources (e.g., education, safe housing, green space) that influence neurodevelopment and mental health. However, we need a clearer understanding of the mechanisms mediating these relationships. Limited access to neighborhood resources may hinder youth from achieving their goals and, over time, shape their behavioral and neurobiological response to negatively biased environments blocking goals/ rewards.MethodTo test this hypothesis, 211 youth (∼ 13.0 years, 48% boys, 62% identifying as white, 75% with a psychiatric disorder diagnosis) performed a task during functional magnetic resonance imaging. Initially, rewards depended on performance (unbiased condition), but later, rewards were randomly withheld under the pretense that youth did not perform adequately (negatively biased condition), a manipulation that elicits frustration, sadness, and a broad response in neural networks. We investigated associations between the Childhood Opportunity Index (COI), which quantifies access to youth-relevant neighborhood features in one metric, and the multimodal response to the negatively biased condition, controlling for age, sex, medication, and psychopathology.ResultsYouth from less-resourced neighborhoods responded with less anger (p<.001, marginal R2=.42) and more sadness (p<.001, marginal R2=.46) to the negatively biased condition than youth from well-resourced neighborhoods. On the neurobiological level, lower COI scores were associated with a more localized processing mode (p=.039, marginal R2=.076), reduced connectivity between the somato-motor-salience and the control network (p=.041, marginal R2=.040), and fewer provincial hubs in the somatic-motor-salience, control, and default mode networks (all pFWE<.05).ConclusionThe present study adds to a growing literature documenting how inequity may affect the brain and emotions in youth. Future work should test whether findings generalize to more diverse samples and explore effects on neurodevelopmental trajectories and emerging mood disorders during adolescence.