Heterogeneity in the Effects of Neighborhood Deprivation on Economic Decision Making and Mental Health in Children

Understanding how a childs social and economic surroundings influence their mental development and potential for psychological disorders is essential for unpacking the origins of mental health issues. This study, using up-to-date machine learning-based causal inference methods, tested the relationships between neighborhood socioeconomic deprivation, delay discounting, and psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) in 2,135 children considering the wide range of covariates. We found that a greater neighborhood deprivation led to steeper future reward discounting and a higher psychosis risk, evident over 1-year and 2-year follow- ups. We also discovered, across children, significant individual differences in the effect of neighborhood adversity on childhood PLEs, particularly hallucinational symptoms. Children particularly vulnerable to PLEs in adverse neighborhoods exhibited steeper future reward discounting, higher cognitive performance polygenic scores, notable neuroanatomical alterations, including reduced volume, surface area, and white matter in limbic regions. Furthermore, these children displayed increased BOLD reactivity within the prefrontal-limbic system during Monetary Incentive Delay tasks across various reward/loss versus neutral conditions. These findings underscore the intricate interaction between the brains reward processing mechanisms and external socioeconomic elements in shaping the risk of psychosis in children.