Functional differences in neural activations of low -SES individuals to emotionally -provocative images: Relating socioeconomic status to health outcomes
Item
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Title
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Functional differences in neural activations of low -SES individuals to emotionally -provocative images: Relating socioeconomic status to health outcomes
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Identifier
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d_2009_2013:da479bf61b49:10082
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identifier
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10165
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Creator
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Rosen, Zohn,
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Contributor
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Laura A. Rabin
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Date
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2009
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Language
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English
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Publisher
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City University of New York.
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Subject
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Experimental psychology | Public policy | functional MRI | health outcomes | Socioeconomic status | stress
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Abstract
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Although material factors account for a portion of the relationship, cognitive factors likely explain much of the association between socioeconomic status (SES) and health. Functional MRI was used to explore differences in the processing of emotionally provocative images in a sample of low-SES versus high-SES individuals. Fifteen participants (8 low-SES, 7 high-SES) were presented with validated positive, negative, neutral, and poverty-specific images while performing a simple image/scramble identification task. Regions of interest investigated included limbic regions, as well as areas associated with modulating emotional control (i.e., frontal cortices), and regions associated with the transduction of emotional states into physiological changes (i.e., caudate, thalamus, and locus coeruleus). Results showed significant differences in each of the identified regions of interest, with low-SES individuals having increased activation of limbic and transductive regions when presented with negative images and images of poverty. In addition, low-SES individuals showed relative decreased amygdala activation in the poverty-specific condition, as well as increased insula activation coupled with decreased activation in the anterior cingulate, fusiform, and frontal regions when presented with positive imagery. These results imply significant and meaningful processing differences for emotionally charged imagery in individuals at different levels of the socioeconomic spectrum. Additionally, results may help identify neural regions associated with the transduction of emotional information into somatic changes that cause the observed long-term health disparities seen in low-SES members of the community.
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Type
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dissertation
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Source
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2009_2013.csv
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degree
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Ph.D.
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Program
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Psychology
