Pattern learning reveals brain asymmetry to be linked to socioeconomic status

Cerebral Cortex Communications, vol. 3, pp. tgac020

Abstract

Abstract Socioeconomic status (SES) anchors individuals in their social network layers. Our embedding in the societal fabric resonates with habitus, world view, opportunity, and health disparity. It remains obscure how distinct facets of SES are reflected in the architecture of the central nervous system. Here, we capitalized on multivariate multi-output learning algorithms to explore possible imprints of SES in gray and white matter structure in the wider population (n ≈ 10,000 UK Biobank participants). Individuals with higher SES, compared with those with lower SES, showed a pattern of increased region volumes in the left brain and decreased region volumes in the right brain. The analogous lateralization pattern emerged for the fiber structure of anatomical white matter tracts. Our multimodal findings suggest hemispheric asymmetry as an SES-related brain signature, which was consistent across six different indicators of SES: degree, education, income, job, neighborhood and vehicle count. Hence, hemispheric specialization may have evolved in human primates in a way that reveals crucial links to SES.

Authors 12

1. Timm B. Poeppl Aachen Faculty of Medicine Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics

   RWTH Aachen University · Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Health Management, School of Business, Economics and Society, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg , Nürnberg , Germany

   Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Faculty of Medicine, RWTH Aachen University , Aachen , Germany

2. Emile Dimas

   McGill University · Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Biomedical Engineering, McConnell Brain Imaging Center (BIC), Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), Faculty of Medicine, School of Computer Science, McGill University, Montreal , Quebec , Canada

3. Katrin Sakreida Aachen Faculty of Medicine Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Faculty of Medicine, RWTH Aachen University , Aachen , Germany

4. Julius M. Kernbach Aachen Faculty of Medicine Department of Neurosurgery

   RWTH Aachen University

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Neurosurgery, Faculty of Medicine, RWTH Aachen University , Aachen , Germany

5. Ross D. Markello

   McGill University · Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital

   Affiliation as printed

   McConnell Brain Imaging Center (BIC), Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal , Quebec , Canada

6. Oliver Schöffski

   Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Health Management, School of Business, Economics and Society, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg , Nürnberg , Germany

7. Alain Dagher

   McGill University · Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital

   Affiliation as printed

   Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), McGill University , Montreal, Quebec , Canada

8. Philipp Koellinger

   University of Wisconsin–Madison · Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

   Affiliation as printed

   Department of Economics, School of Business and Economics, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam , Amsterdam , The Netherlands

   La Follette School of Public Affairs, University of Wisconsin-Madison , Madison, WI , USA

9. Gideon Nave

   University of Pennsylvania

   Affiliation as printed

   Marketing Department, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania , Philadelphia, PA , USA

10. Martha J. Farah

    University of Pennsylvania

    Affiliation as printed

    Center for Neuroscience and Society, University of Pennsylvania , Philadelphia, PA , USA

11. Bratislav Mišić

    McGill University · Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital

    Affiliation as printed

    McConnell Brain Imaging Center (BIC), Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal , Quebec , Canada

12. Danilo Bzdok corresponding

    McGill University · Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital · Mila - Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute

    Affiliation as printed

    Department of Biomedical Engineering, McConnell Brain Imaging Center (BIC), Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI), Faculty of Medicine, School of Computer Science, McGill University, Montreal , Quebec , Canada

    Mila – Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute , Montreal, Quebec , Canada