The Role of School Environment in Brain Structure, Connectivity, and Mental Health in Children

Methods:

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The ABCD Study is a large multisite longitudinal study that has recruited ~11,800 children (9–10 years of age) in order to comprehensively characterize psychological and neurobiological development from early adolescence to early adulthood (52,53). The sample consisted of 11,627 participants that had data on their school environment.

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The “Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD)” Study is a research project involving long-term observations on the same group of participants in multiple locations. It has gathered data from about 11,800 children who are around 9 or 10 years old. The goal is to better understand how children’s minds and brains develop as they grow from early teenagers (puberty period) into young adults. Through this study, 11,627 children have provided details about their school environment.

Introduction:

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Preliminary work in youths 9 to 18 years of age has shown associations between school environment and brain structure. Piccolo et al. (38) reported that higher perceived academic support (one aspect of the school environment) was associated with increased cortical thickness (averaged across the whole brain). However, no studies to our knowledge have examined associations between the school environment and regional cortical thickness or surface area.

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Early research involved young participants who’re aged 9 to 18, it has found a link between higher level of academic support they received and their brain structure & function. One study by Piccolo and other scientists found that students who felt more supported academically may have increased depth of the brain outermost layer, known as the cerebral cortex, that is related to the brain function and cognitive ability. However, no studies have yet proved how different parts of the brain surface or size can relate to the school environment.

Results:

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After permutation testing, PLSC resulted in one significant LC (p<.001). The LC was significantly associated with two of the four connectivity variables as well as with all domains of mental health.

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After testing the statistical data, the “Partial Least Squares Correlation (PLSC)” found one hidden factor that was strongly connected to two of the four brain connectivity variables and related to all areas of mental health.

Discussion:

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Our predictions were only partially supported, whereby we did find associations between school environment and connectivity within a higher-order network as well as connectivity between a task-positive network and the DMN but did not find associations with brain grey or white matter structure.

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Our anticipations were only partly supported. We found links between the school environment and how certain parts of the brain work together, between networks involved in different levels of cognitive activities and tasks. However, we didn’t find any connections between these brain activities and the actual brain tissues and structures.

Future Directions:

• What future research should follow up on this work?

Further scientific research in the field of Anatomy and Physiology can help better understand studies like this. It can explore how cells, the nervous system, and brain development are connected, and how they function together in different regions of the brain. This can be important for understanding how school environmental experiences may affect children’s mental health and their growth.

The article wasn’t too hard to understand; however, it took me some additional time to reference to all the abbreviations. Since the full names weren’t repeated throughout the article, I kept having to go back to the first page to check what they stood for. This made reading and understanding less efficient.

Some of the abbreviations are as follows;

• ABCD – Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development
• PLSC – Partial Least Squares Correlation
• DMN – Default Mode Network
• LC – Latent Component
• CON – Cingulo-Opercular Network