title: Pathway to neural resilience: Self-esteem buffers against deleterious effects of poverty on the hippocampus.
abstract: Human neuroimaging studies have shown that people living in poverty tend to suffer hippocampal atrophy, which leads to impaired memory and learning throughout life. However, behavioral studies demonstrate that poor people with high self-esteem are often exempt from the deleterious effect of poverty and instead possess a happy and successful life. Here we investigated whether high self-esteem can buffer against the deleterious effects of poverty, as indicated by low subjective socioeconomic status (SSS), on the hippocampal gray matter volume (GMV) in a large cohort of young participants (N = 280). As expected, findings revealed that although low (vs. high) SSS was linked with a smaller hippocampal GMV, the deleterious effect of low SSS on hippocampal GMV was alleviated when the participants have high self-esteem. Commonality analyses further confirmed this observation. The current study suggests that positive psychological resources such as self-esteem may provide protection for the hippocampal atrophy in adversity. Hum Brain Mapp 37:3757-3766, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Yinan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Civil Aviation Medical Center, Civil Aviation Administration of China, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Lin
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning & IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Xiangzhen
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Kong
authors.affiliation: Business School, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
authors.forename: Yingyi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Hong
authors.affiliation: Division of Psychology, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.|Clinical Nutrition Research Centre, Singapore Institute for Clinical Sciences (A*STAR), Singapore.
authors.forename: Bobby
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Cheon
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, Beijing Key Laboratory of Applied Experimental Psychology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China. liujia@bnu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Jia
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Liu
mesh_terms: D015331:Cohort Studies; D005260:Female; D066128:Gray Matter / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging; D006624:Hippocampus / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009929:Organ Size; D011203:Poverty / Q000523:psychology*; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012044:Regression Analysis; D055500:Resilience, Psychological; D012649:Self Concept; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: hippocampus; resilience; self-esteem; socioeconomic status