Study reveals how neighborhood violence alters kid’s brain development

By Isobel Williams via SWNS

Living in violent neighborhoods can distort a child’s brain development, according to a new study.

New research shows that living in neighborhoods with high levels of violence can change the way that the part of the brain detects and responds to potential threats, potentially leading to poorer mental health and other negative outcomes.

However, the study, published in the journal Developmental Psychology, states that nurturing parents can help protect kids against these detrimental effects.

Researchers at The University of Michigan in the US hypothesized that growing up in violent areas affected the development of the amygdala, the hub of the brain’s stress response system that’s involved in socioemotional functioning, threat processing and fear learning.

To test that theory, they analyzed data from 708 children and teens ages 7 to 19, recruited from 354 families enrolled in the Michigan Twins Neurogenetic Study.

Most of these children were from neighborhoods with above-average levels of poverty and disadvantage.

Teens completed a set of surveys that asked about their exposure to community violence, their relationship with their parents and their parents’ parenting style.

Participants also had their brains scanned by functional MRI while they looked at faces that were angry, fearful, happy or neutral.

Overall, the researchers found that participants who lived in more disadvantaged neighborhoods reported more exposure to community violence, and participants who reported more exposure to community violence showed higher levels of amygdala reactivity to fearful and angry faces.

Dr. Luke Hyde said: “Decades of research has shown that growing up in neighborhoods with concentrated disadvantage can predict negative academic, behavioral and mental health outcomes in children and teens. And recent research is beginning to show that one way it does that is by impacting the developing brain.

“However, less is known about how neighborhood disadvantage ‘gets under the skin’ to impact brain development.”

Regarding the findings, he said: “This makes sense as it’s adaptive for adolescents to be more in tune to threats when living in a more dangerous neighborhood.”

Hs said the results held true even when controlling for an individual family’s income, parental education and other forms of violence exposure in the home, such as harsh parenting and intimate partner violence.

The research team also found that strong, positive parents can promote resilience among children and teens exposed to adversity, with nurturing parents breaking the link between amygdala reactivity and violence.

Graduate student and co-author Gabriela Suarez said: “Despite living in a disadvantaged neighborhood, children with more nurturing and involved parents were not as likely to be exposed to community violence, and for those who were exposed, having a more nurturing parent diminished the impact of violence exposure on the brain.

“These findings really highlight how nurturing and involved parents are helping to support their children’s success, even in potentially harsh environments, and offer clues as to why some youth are resilient even when facing adversity.”

The team said that their findings highlight the need for structural solutions to protect children from the negative impact of exposure to community violence.

Dr. Alex Burt added: “Parents may be an important buffer against these broader structural inequalities, and thus working with parents may be one way to help protect children -- while we also work on policies to reduce the concentration of disadvantage in neighborhoods and the risk for exposure to violence in the community.”