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Neural Mechanisms Underlying The Income-Achievement Gap: The Role Of The Ventral Visual Stream, Maya L. Rosen, Lucy A. Lurie, Kelly A. Sambrook, Andrew N. Meltzoff, Katie A. Mclaughlin

Neuroscience: Faculty Publications

Children from low-socioeconomic status (SES) households on average exhibit lower academic achievement than their higher-SES peers. We investigated a novel hypothesis that differences in early-developing sensory networks—specifically the ventral visual stream (VVS), which is involved in processing visual stimuli—contribute to SES-related disparities in executive functions (EF) and academic outcomes. We used fMRI to investigate SES-related differences in neural function in children (6–8 years, n = 62) during two attentional tasks involving attention to visual information: cued attention and memory-guided attention. Recruitment of VVS during both tasks was associated with EF and academic achievement, and SES-related differences in VVS activation during …