A recent study revealed that living in a disadvantaged neighborhood is not only linked to poor dietary habits but it could also disrupt brain regions that are responsible for emotion regulation and cognition.
“We found that neighborhood disadvantage was associated with differences in the fine structure of the cortex of the brain. Some of these differences were linked to higher body mass index and correlated with high intake of the trans-fatty acids found in fried fast food,” said senior author of the study, Arpana Gupta, PhD, who is the co-director of the Goodman-Luskin Center and Director of the Neuroimaging Core, in a press release.
“Our results suggest that regions of the brain involved in reward, emotion, and the acquisition of knowledge and understanding might be affected by aspects of neighborhood disadvantage that contribute to obesity,” Gupta added in her statement. “This highlights the importance of addressing dietary quality issues in disadvantaged neighborhoods to protect brain health.”
Gupta and colleagues said a disadvantaged neighborhood refers to communities where people drop out of school earlier, have lower than the average income, and live in crowded areas without adequate plumbing facilities. The team studied 92 adults (65 women and 27 men) who resided in the greater Los Angeles area. All participants underwent MRI scans from October 2019 to July 2022 at the University of California, Los Angeles.
In a 2020 JAMA Neurology study, researchers found that individuals who lived in a disadvantaged neighborhood were more likely to have decreased brain volume than those who are from better-off neighborhoods. While the exact mechanisms underlying this association is still unclear, researchers hypothesize that obesity might be a possible contributing factor. Multiple studies have highlighted a higher risk of obesity among people in disadvantaged neighborhoods due to living in unwalkable areas that make it difficult for residents to engage in physical activities.
To dig deeper, the researchers used the participants’ MRI scans and further assessed whether they lived in disadvantaged neighborhoods based on their zip code’s area deprivation index (ADI). The team was able to determine that by using Neighborhood Atlas, which was developed at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine’s Public Health.
In a press release, Lisa Kilpatrick, a researcher at the Goodman-Luskin Microbiome Center explained, “Different populations of cells exist in different layers of the cortex, where there are different signaling mechanisms and information-processing functions. Examining the microstructure at different cortical levels provides a better understanding of alterations in cell populations, processes and communication routes that may be affected by living in a disadvantaged neighborhood.”
The team found that the participants living in neighborhoods with the worse area deprivation index scores experienced communication changes in brain regions that are crucial for regulating emotions, processing and absorbing new information, and other higher cognitive processes.
“In particular, neighborhood disadvantage is associated with an increased intake of calories from trans-fatty acids (TFAs) and sodium. This suggests that it might be important to make healthier food more readily available in disadvantaged neighborhoods to improve the health of people’s brains,” the researchers concluded in their study.
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