Associations of neighborhood threat and deprivation with psychopathology: Uncovering neural mechanisms

Background: Assessing dimensions of neighborhoods could aid identification of contextual features that influence psychopathology inchildren and contribute to uncovering mechanisms underlying these associations.Method: The ABCD sample included 8,339 participants aged 9–10 from 21 U.S. sites. Mixed effect and structural equation models estimatedassociations of self-reported neighborhood threat/safety and county-level neighborhood threat (i.e., crime) and tract-level deprivation withpsychopathology symptoms and indirect effects. Hypothesized mechanisms included emotion processing (adaptation to emotional conflict,task-active ROIs for emotional n-back) and cognition (EF and task-active ROIs for the stop-signal task); exploratory analyses included neuralfunction (of amygdala to network and within-network resting state connectivity).Results: Associations of neighborhood deprivation and all symptoms were mediated by EF; links with psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) weremediated by retrosplenial temporal and dorsal attention within-network connectivity. In contrast, neighborhood threat was associated withattention difficulties, internalizing problems, and PLEs uniquely via default mode within-network connectivity; with attention difficulties,externalizing symptoms, and PLEs through amygdala-dorsal attention within-network connectivity, with PLEs and externalizing symptomsthrough visual within-network connectivity; with PLEs and attention difficulties through amygdala-sensorimotor connectivity, and with PLEsthrough amygdala-salience network connectivity.Conclusion: Neighborhood deprivation and threat predicted symptoms through distinct neural and cognitive pathways, with implications forprevention and intervention efforts at contextual levels.