Does Childhood Prefrontal Cortex Volume Vary With Socioeconomic Status?
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- I explore the relationship between prefrontal cortex (PFC) volume and socioeconomic status in children. Previous studies have shown that children of lower-SES perform worse than their peers on tests of cognitive functions controlled by the prefrontal cortex, such as executive function, working memory, and IQ. Evidence indicates that the environment associated with low-SES can cause such deficiencies, but the literature thus far has failed to distinguish between these effects and the effects of genetics, a distinction that is of utmost importance if we wish to construct policies to counteract this correlation. My study aims to establish whether differences in the gray matter volume of the PFC are responsible for these differences in cognitive performance. PFC gray matter volume has been shown to govern many of the cognitive functions in which low-SES children are deficient, and it also shows promise as a target for the influence of the low-SES environment. To test the extent to which the PFC gray matter volume is an intermediary in the relationship between SES and cognitive performance, then, I perform a cross-sectional and a differences regression of PFC volume on parental SES for 272 children aged 4-21. My results indicate that while there is indeed a correlation between SES and PFC gray matter volume, it is of a very small magnitude, and hence the PFC gray matter volume is most likely not the primary intermediary in the relationship between SES and cognitive performance.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | May 2010 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | Beck, Andrew |
|---|---|
| Primary advisor | Bhattacharya, Jayanta |
| Degree granting institution | Stanford University, Department of Economics |
Subjects
| Subject | Stanford Department of Economics |
|---|---|
| Subject | PFC |
| Subject | SES |
| Subject | Executive Function |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
| Related item | |
|---|---|
| Location | https://purl.stanford.edu/bh307qm9618 |
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Preferred citation
- Preferred Citation
- Beck, Andrew. (2010). Does Childhood Prefrontal Cortex Volume Vary With Socioeconomic Status?. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at: https://purl.stanford.edu/bh307qm9618
Collection
Stanford University, Department of Economics, Honors Theses
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