Distinct effects of early-stage and late-stage socioeconomic factors on brain and behavioral traits

Qiang Xu^#¹, Su Lui^#², Yuan Ji^#¹, Jingliang Cheng³, Long Jiang Zhang⁴, Bing Zhang⁵, Wenzhen Zhu⁶, Zuojun Geng⁷, Guangbin Cui⁸, Quan Zhang⁹, Weihua Liao^{10

11

12}, Yongqiang Yu¹³, Hui Zhang¹⁴, Bo Gao^{15

16}, Xiaojun Xu¹⁷, Tong Han¹⁸, Zhenwei Yao¹⁹, Wen Qin¹, Feng Liu¹, Meng Liang²⁰, Jilian Fu¹, Jiayuan Xu¹, Peng Zhang²¹, Wei Li²¹, Dapeng Shi²², Caihong Wang³, Jia-Hong Gao²³, Zhihan Yan²⁴, Feng Chen²⁵, Jiance Li²⁶, Jing Zhang^{27

28}, Dawei Wang²⁹, Wen Shen³⁰, Yanwei Miao³¹, Junfang Xian³², Meiyun Wang²², Zhaoxiang Ye²¹, Xiaochu Zhang³³, Xi-Nian Zuo^{34

35}, Kai Xu³⁶, Shijun Qiu^{37

38}, Chunshui Yu^{39

40}; CHIMGEN Consortium

Collaborators, Affiliations

Collaborators

CHIMGEN Consortium:
Chunshui Yu, Quan Zhang, Junping Wang, Xue Zhang, Xinjun Suo, Congcong Yuan, Hui Xue, Tianying Gao, Junpeng Liu, Yanjun Li, Xi Guo, Lixue Xu, Jiajia Zhu, Huaigui Liu, Fangshi Zhao, Jie Sun, Yongjie Xu, Huanhuan Cai, Jie Tang, Yaodan Zhang, Yongqin Xiong, Xianting Sun, Nannan Pan, Jiayang Yang, Nana Liu, Ya Wen, Dan Zhu, Bingjie Wu, Wenshuang Zhu, Qingqing Diao, Yujuan Cao, Bingbing Yang, Lining Guo, Yingying Xie, Jiahui Lin, Zhimin Li, Yan Zhang, Kaizhong Xue, Zirui Wang, Junlin Shen, Meng Liang, Xuejun Zhang, Hao Ding, Qian Su, Mulin Jun Li, Shijie Zhang, Lun Ma, Yan Bai, Min Guan, Wei Wei, Peifang Miao, Fuhong Duan, Yafei Guo, Weijian Wang, Lijuan Zheng, Li Lin, Yunfei Wang, Han Zhang, Xinyuan Zhang, Zhao Qing, Sichu Wu, Junxia Wang, Yi Sun, Yang He, Xi-Nian Zuo, Zhe Zhang, Yin-Shan Wang, Quan Zhou, Tian Tian, Yi Liang, Yujie Liu, Hui Zeng, Jingxian Chen, Haitao Ge, Peng Xu, Cailuan Lu, Chen Wu, Xiaoying Yang, Yuzhao Wang, Yankai Wu, Xuran Feng, Ling Li, Duo Gao, Rujing Zha, Ying Li, Lizhuang Yang, Ying Chen, Ling Zuo, Jianqiao Ge, Guoyuan Yang, Wen Wang, Linfeng Yan, Yang Yang, Jin Zhang, Qian Wang, Xiaoxia Qu, Ying Wang, Fei Yuan, Li Hu, Jizhen Li, Weiwei Wang, Yujing Zhou, Miaomiao Long, Lihua Liu, Xiaohu Li, Xiaoshu Li, Yunjun Yang, Nengzhi Xia, Weihua Liao, Shuai Yang, Youming Zhang, Jing Zhang, Guangyao Liu, Laiyang Ma, Xiaochun Wang, Ying Lei, Bo Gao, Gang Zhang, Kang Yuan, Jingjing Xu, Xiaojun Guan, Yuankai Lin, Hui Juan Chen, Yuchuan Fu, Yi Lu, Jun Guo, Hao Lu, Yue Wu

Affiliations

¹ Department of Radiology, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, and State Key Laboratory of Experimental Hematology, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin, China.
² Department of Radiology, the Center for Medical Imaging, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
³ Department of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China.
⁴ Department of Medical Imaging, Jinling Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
⁵ Department of Radiology, Drum Tower Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
⁶ Department of Radiology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
⁷ Department of Medical Imaging, The Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, China.
⁸ Functional and Molecular Imaging Key Lab of Shaanxi Province & Department of Radiology, Tangdu Hospital, Air Force Medical University, Xi'an, China.
⁹ Department of Radiology, Characteristic Medical Center of Chinese People's Armed Police Force, Tianjin, China.
¹⁰ Department of Radiology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.
¹¹ Molecular Imaging Research Center of Central South University, Changsha, China.
¹² National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Disorders, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.
¹³ Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.
¹⁴ Department of Radiology, The First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China.
¹⁵ Department of Radiology, The Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, China.
¹⁶ Department of Radiology, Yantai Yuhuangding Hospital, Yantai, China.
¹⁷ Department of Radiology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University, School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China.
¹⁸ Department of Radiology, Tianjin Huanhu Hospital, Tianjin, China.
¹⁹ Department of Radiology, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
²⁰ School of Medical Imaging and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China.
²¹ Department of Radiology, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin, China.
²² Department of Radiology, Henan Provincial People's Hospital & Zhengzhou University People's Hospital, Zhengzhou, China.
²³ Center for MRI Research, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing, China.
²⁴ Department of Radiology, The Second Affiliated Hospital and Yuying Children's Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China.
²⁵ Department of Radiology, Hainan General Hospital (Hainan Affiliated Hospital of Hainan Medical University), Haikou, China.
²⁶ Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China.
²⁷ Department of Magnetic Resonance, Lanzhou University Second Hospital, Lanzhou, China.
²⁸ Gansu Province Clinical Research Center for Functional and Molecular Imaging, Lanzhou, China.
²⁹ Department of Radiology, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan, China.
³⁰ Department of Radiology, Tianjin First Center Hospital, Tianjin, China.
³¹ Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China.
³² Department of Radiology, Beijing Tongren Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
³³ Division of Life Science and Medicine, University of Science & Technology of China, Hefei, China.
³⁴ IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
³⁵ Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
³⁶ Department of Radiology, The Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China. xukai@xzhmu.edu.cn.
³⁷ Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China. qiu-sj@163.com.
³⁸ State Key Laboratory of Traditional Chinese Medicine Syndrome, Guangzhou, China. qiu-sj@163.com.
³⁹ Department of Radiology, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, and State Key Laboratory of Experimental Hematology, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin, China. chunshuiyu@tmu.edu.cn.
⁴⁰ CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China. chunshuiyu@tmu.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 39994408
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-025-01882-w

Distinct effects of early-stage and late-stage socioeconomic factors on brain and behavioral traits

Qiang Xu et al. Nat Neurosci. 2025 Mar.

. 2025 Mar;28(3):676-687.

doi: 10.1038/s41593-025-01882-w. Epub 2025 Feb 24.

Authors

Collaborators

CHIMGEN Consortium:
Chunshui Yu, Quan Zhang, Junping Wang, Xue Zhang, Xinjun Suo, Congcong Yuan, Hui Xue, Tianying Gao, Junpeng Liu, Yanjun Li, Xi Guo, Lixue Xu, Jiajia Zhu, Huaigui Liu, Fangshi Zhao, Jie Sun, Yongjie Xu, Huanhuan Cai, Jie Tang, Yaodan Zhang, Yongqin Xiong, Xianting Sun, Nannan Pan, Jiayang Yang, Nana Liu, Ya Wen, Dan Zhu, Bingjie Wu, Wenshuang Zhu, Qingqing Diao, Yujuan Cao, Bingbing Yang, Lining Guo, Yingying Xie, Jiahui Lin, Zhimin Li, Yan Zhang, Kaizhong Xue, Zirui Wang, Junlin Shen, Meng Liang, Xuejun Zhang, Hao Ding, Qian Su, Mulin Jun Li, Shijie Zhang, Lun Ma, Yan Bai, Min Guan, Wei Wei, Peifang Miao, Fuhong Duan, Yafei Guo, Weijian Wang, Lijuan Zheng, Li Lin, Yunfei Wang, Han Zhang, Xinyuan Zhang, Zhao Qing, Sichu Wu, Junxia Wang, Yi Sun, Yang He, Xi-Nian Zuo, Zhe Zhang, Yin-Shan Wang, Quan Zhou, Tian Tian, Yi Liang, Yujie Liu, Hui Zeng, Jingxian Chen, Haitao Ge, Peng Xu, Cailuan Lu, Chen Wu, Xiaoying Yang, Yuzhao Wang, Yankai Wu, Xuran Feng, Ling Li, Duo Gao, Rujing Zha, Ying Li, Lizhuang Yang, Ying Chen, Ling Zuo, Jianqiao Ge, Guoyuan Yang, Wen Wang, Linfeng Yan, Yang Yang, Jin Zhang, Qian Wang, Xiaoxia Qu, Ying Wang, Fei Yuan, Li Hu, Jizhen Li, Weiwei Wang, Yujing Zhou, Miaomiao Long, Lihua Liu, Xiaohu Li, Xiaoshu Li, Yunjun Yang, Nengzhi Xia, Weihua Liao, Shuai Yang, Youming Zhang, Jing Zhang, Guangyao Liu, Laiyang Ma, Xiaochun Wang, Ying Lei, Bo Gao, Gang Zhang, Kang Yuan, Jingjing Xu, Xiaojun Guan, Yuankai Lin, Hui Juan Chen, Yuchuan Fu, Yi Lu, Jun Guo, Hao Lu, Yue Wu

Affiliations

¹ Department of Radiology, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, and State Key Laboratory of Experimental Hematology, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin, China.
² Department of Radiology, the Center for Medical Imaging, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
³ Department of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China.
⁴ Department of Medical Imaging, Jinling Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
⁵ Department of Radiology, Drum Tower Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
⁶ Department of Radiology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
⁷ Department of Medical Imaging, The Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, China.
⁸ Functional and Molecular Imaging Key Lab of Shaanxi Province & Department of Radiology, Tangdu Hospital, Air Force Medical University, Xi'an, China.
⁹ Department of Radiology, Characteristic Medical Center of Chinese People's Armed Police Force, Tianjin, China.
¹⁰ Department of Radiology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.
¹¹ Molecular Imaging Research Center of Central South University, Changsha, China.
¹² National Clinical Research Center for Geriatric Disorders, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.
¹³ Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.
¹⁴ Department of Radiology, The First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China.
¹⁵ Department of Radiology, The Affiliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, China.
¹⁶ Department of Radiology, Yantai Yuhuangding Hospital, Yantai, China.
¹⁷ Department of Radiology, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University, School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China.
¹⁸ Department of Radiology, Tianjin Huanhu Hospital, Tianjin, China.
¹⁹ Department of Radiology, Huashan Hospital, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
²⁰ School of Medical Imaging and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China.
²¹ Department of Radiology, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin, China.
²² Department of Radiology, Henan Provincial People's Hospital & Zhengzhou University People's Hospital, Zhengzhou, China.
²³ Center for MRI Research, Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, Beijing, China.
²⁴ Department of Radiology, The Second Affiliated Hospital and Yuying Children's Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China.
²⁵ Department of Radiology, Hainan General Hospital (Hainan Affiliated Hospital of Hainan Medical University), Haikou, China.
²⁶ Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China.
²⁷ Department of Magnetic Resonance, Lanzhou University Second Hospital, Lanzhou, China.
²⁸ Gansu Province Clinical Research Center for Functional and Molecular Imaging, Lanzhou, China.
²⁹ Department of Radiology, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan, China.
³⁰ Department of Radiology, Tianjin First Center Hospital, Tianjin, China.
³¹ Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China.
³² Department of Radiology, Beijing Tongren Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
³³ Division of Life Science and Medicine, University of Science & Technology of China, Hefei, China.
³⁴ IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
³⁵ Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
³⁶ Department of Radiology, The Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China. xukai@xzhmu.edu.cn.
³⁷ Department of Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China. qiu-sj@163.com.
³⁸ State Key Laboratory of Traditional Chinese Medicine Syndrome, Guangzhou, China. qiu-sj@163.com.
³⁹ Department of Radiology, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, and State Key Laboratory of Experimental Hematology, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin, China. chunshuiyu@tmu.edu.cn.
⁴⁰ CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, China. chunshuiyu@tmu.edu.cn.

^# Contributed equally.

PMID: 39994408
DOI: 10.1038/s41593-025-01882-w

Abstract

Socioeconomic status (SES) is a time-varying multidimensional construct with ill-defined dimension-specific and age-specific effects on brain and behavior. We investigated these effects in 4,228 young adults. From 16 socioeconomic indicators, assessed for early (0-10 years) and late (>10 years) stages, we constructed family, provincial, family adverse and neighborhood adverse socioeconomic dimensions. Generally, family SES was associated with brain structure and connectivity along with cognitive function, whereas family adverse and neighborhood adverse SES were associated with personality and emotion. Most associations were observed for both early and late-stage SES; however, adjusting for the effect of early stage SES revealed late-stage-specific SES effects. Changes in SES were associated with personality and cognitive function. Cerebellar and medial frontal volumes and functional connectivity within the left frontoparietal network mediated the associations between family SES and memory and openness. These results inform both more precise interventions for reducing the consequences of adverse SES and experimental designs for excluding confounding socioeconomic effects on human health.

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Conflict of interest statement

Competing interests: The authors declare no competing interests

References

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Distinct effects of early-stage and late-stage socioeconomic factors on brain and behavioral traits

Collaborators

Affiliations

Distinct effects of early-stage and late-stage socioeconomic factors on brain and behavioral traits

Authors

Collaborators

Affiliations

Abstract

Conflict of interest statement

References

MeSH terms

Grants and funding

LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources