A Single, Reproducible Dimension Organizes Associations Between the Early Environment and the Developing Brain
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Childhood adversity has enduring consequences for health and development across the lifespan, yet the organizing structure linking diverse environmental experiences to the developing brain remains poorly understood. We jointly modeled 104 measures of children’s environments, spanning interpersonal, household, and neighborhood contexts, with 7 neuroimaging modalities of brain structure and function in 5,976 youth. Despite this breadth, only a single adversity-brain dimension emerged and replicated in held-out data. This dimension was defined primarily by socioeconomic and neighborhood deprivation and selectively expressed in lower cortical surface area and distributed functional connectivity concentrated in sensorimotor systems. Total cortical surface area reproduced 96% of the regional association, indicating a global rather than regionally specific structural signature. This dimension predicted poorer cognition and cardiometabolic health six years later. These findings reveal a strikingly selective, low-dimensional relation between children’s environments and neurodevelopment, with socioeconomic deprivation emerging as the principal environmental axis associated with the developing brain.
