Childhood poverty and chronic stress may lead to problems regulating emotion

游客2024-03-07  22

问题     Childhood poverty and chronic stress may lead to problems regulating emotions as an adult, according to the research published online in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
    "Our findings suggest that the stress-burden of growing up poor may be an underlying mechanism that accounts for the relationship between poverty as a child and how well the brain works as an adult," said Luan Phan, a professor of psychiatry (精神病学) at University of Illinois and also the senior author of the study.
    The researchers found that test subjects from lower-income families showed, as adults, greater activity in the amygdala (扁桃腺) , a brain area involved in fear and other negative emotions. These individuals showed low activity in areas of the prefrontal cortex (前额皮质) , an area in the brain thought to regulate negative emotion. Amygdala and prefrontal cortex dysfunction (活动异常) has been associated with mood disorders including depression, anxiety, impulsive aggression and substance abuse, according to the authors.
    Phan said it is well known that the negative effects of poverty can set up "a cascade of increasing risk factors" for children to develop physical and psychological problems as an adult.
    But it has not been known how childhood poverty might affect brain function, particularly in emotional regulation. The ability to regulate negative emotions can provide protection against the physical and psychological health consequences of stress, he said.
    The study examined associations between childhood poverty at age 9, exposure to chronic stressors during childhood, and neural activity in areas of the brain involved in emotional regulation at age 24. Forty-nine participants took part.
    Data on family income, stressor exposures, physiological stress responses, socio-emotional development, and parent-child interactions were collected. About half the participants were from low-income families.
    Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the researchers evaluated the participants’ brain activity as they performed an emotional-regulation task. Subjects were asked to try to suppress negative emotions while viewing pictures, using a cognitive coping strategy.
    "This serves as a brain-behavioral index of a person’s day-to-day ability to cope with stress and negative emotions as they encounter them," Phan said.
    Perhaps the most important finding, Phan added, was that the amount of chronic stress from childhood through adolescence—such as substandard housing, crowding, noise, and social stressors like family turmoil, violence or family separation—determined the relationship between childhood poverty and prefrontal brain function during emotional regulation. [br] What’s the most important finding of the study according to Phan?

选项 A、The amount of chronic stress from childhood through adolescence.
B、The amygdala area controls people’s bad feelings.
C、The prefrontal cortex area regulates people’s negative emotions.
D、The thing that determines childhood poverty and prefrontal function’s relationship.

答案 D

解析 细节题。根据题干中的the most important finding可定位到原文最后一段,该句提到此项研究的最重要发现是,从儿童到青少年期问的慢性压力程度决定了童年期间贫困和调节情绪时前额大脑功能之间的关系,故选D。
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