Barbara Geller, MD reviewing Barch D et al. Am J Psychiatry 2016 Jan 15.

Depressive symptoms were mediated by the altered connectivity found in amygdala and hippocampus.

More than 20% of children in the U.S. are living in poverty (http://www.npc.umich.edu/poverty/#5). These investigators examined whether poverty alters mood and functional connectivity of amygdala and hippocampus, determined with resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging.

The participants — 105 children with imaging data obtained at mean age of 10 years and with socioeconomic status established at ages 3 to 5 years — were drawn from a larger, longitudinal depression study in preschoolers who were oversampled for those with depressive symptoms. Children were comprehensively evaluated for depression at the time of scanning.

Greater poverty levels were associated with altered connectivity of hippocampus and amygdala with multiple cortical and subcortical regions, including those known to affect emotion regulation, such as lingual gyrus, posterior cingulate, putamen, and superior frontal cortex. Severity of depressed mood was related to altered connectivity between the left hippocampus and right superior frontal cortex and between the right amygdala and right lingual gyrus. Level of depressed mood was also related to poverty, but only when mediated by aberrant connectivity. Controlling for mothers' depression did not change the findings.

Citation(s):

Barch D et al. Effect of hippocampal and amygdala connectivity on the relationship between preschool poverty and school-age depression. Am J Psychiatry 2016 Jan 15; [e-pub].

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