Author Note
This project was supported by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development grant HD057066 and National Institute of Mental Health grant MH130397 awarded to B.G. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
Correspondence should be addressed to Brandon E. Gibb, Ph.D., Department of Psychology, Binghamton University, State University of New York, Binghamton, NY 13902-6000, USA; Email: bgibb@binghamton.edu.

Abstract

Research has shown that exposure to higher rates of neighborhood disadvantage and contextual threat increases risk for the development of psychopathology in youth, with some evidence that these effects may differ across racial/ethnic groups. Although studies have shown that direct exposure to stress impacts neural responses to threat-relevant stimuli, less is known about how neighborhood characteristics more generally (e.g., living in neighborhood characterized by high crime risk, whether or not the individual directly experiences any crime) may impact children’s neural responses to threat. To address this question, we examined links between census-derived indices of neighborhood crime and neural reactivity to emotional stimuli in a sample of 100 children (Mage = 9.64, 54% girls, 65% non-Hispanic White) and whether these relations differ for children from minority backgrounds compared to non-Hispanic White children. Focusing on the late positive potential (LPP) event-related potential (ERP) component, we examined neural reactivity to threat-relevant stimuli (fearful faces) as well as non-threat relevant negative (sad faces) and positive (happy faces) stimuli across low, medium, and high intensities (morph levels). We found that levels of neighborhood crime were associated with LPP response to high intensity fearful, but not happy or sad, faces, but only among children from racial/ethnic minority backgrounds. This suggests that levels of crime within one’s neighborhood may be a more salient stressor for children from minority racial-ethnic groups than for non-Hispanic White children.
Keywords : Neighborhood stress, Threat, Late positive potential (LPP)

Neighborhood crime risk and racial/ethnic differences in

children’s neural reactivity to emotional stimuli

Neighborhood context during childhood and adolescence contributes to the development of self and perceptions of the world that are maintained into adulthood (Dupéré et al., 2012). Children from lower income neighborhoods have been shown to be exposed to more psychosocial stressors than their peers, including greater exposure to community violence (Evans and English, 2002). In turn, children and adolescents from lower income neighborhoods experiencing greater levels of crime are more likely to experience chronic stress and are at increased risk for psychopathology (Dupéré et. al., 2012; Jorgensen et. al., 2023;King et. al., 2022; Lowe et. al., 2016; Ramey and Harrington, 2019). Although the precise mechanisms by which this risk is conveyed are not clear, a promising candidate is heightened reactivity to threatening stimuli.
Childhood exposure to threat, whether that be negative life events, childhood abuse, or experiences of corporal punishment, have been associated with increased neural reactivity to threat-relevant stimuli (Cuartas et. al., 2021; Gollier-Bryant et. al., 2016; Puetz et. al., 2020; White et. al., 2019). Further, adolescents who had experienced or witnessed violence (e.g. gun/knife violence and physical altercations) exhibited heightened amygdala responses to angry emotional facial stimuli (White et. al., 2019). Each of these studies focused on direct experiences and less is known about how contextual markers such as simply living in an area with higher crime rates may impact neural reactivity to threat. This type of investigation is important because many children live in high crime areas, even if they are not personally the victim of crime themselves.
The primary goal of this study, therefore, was to examine links between neighborhood indices of crime risk and children’s neural reactivity to threat-relevant stimuli. In doing so, we focused on the late positive potential (LPP), which is an event-related potential (ERP) component commonly used to study neural reactivity to emotional stimuli, with larger LPPs observed for emotional or personally salient stimuli than for neutral stimuli (REFs). To determine whether the findings were specific threat-relevant stimuli (fearful faces), we also included non-threat-relevant negative stimuli (sad faces) and positive stimuli (happy faces). We predicted that children from areas with higher levels of neighborhood crime would exhibit larger LPP responses specifically to threat-relevant stimuli. Given evidence that threat exposure may also increase children’s sensitivity to milder or ambiguous displays of threat (e.g., neutral stimuli), we examined three levels of emotional stimuli – low, medium, and high – though we did not make specific hypotheses regarding the different intensity levels.
A secondary aim was to determine whether links between neighborhood crime risk and children’s neural reactivity to emotional stimuli may differ for children from minority racial/ethnic backgrounds compared to non-Hispanic White children. There is evidence for greater neural reactivity to threat relevant stimuli in Black compared to White individuals, particularly among those exposed to higher levels of stress (Fani et. al., 2021; Harnett et. al., 2019) There is also evidence from one study that higher levels of parent-reported levels of neighborhood disadvantage are associated with greater neural reactivity to threat in children and adolescents from racial/ethnic minority backgrounds but not among White youth (Jorgensen et al., 2023). Given this, we predicted that the link between neighborhood crime risk and LPP reactivity to threat-relevant stimuli would be stronger among racial/ethnic minorities, compared to Non-Hispanic White children.

Method