ArticleJournal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry2026
Perceived Racism, Brain Development, and Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms: Findings From the ABCD Study.
Article in Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 papers.
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Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Racism and alterations in brain structure and function: A narrative review of emerging neuroimaging evidence in racialized individuals.Cognitive, affective & behavioral neuroscience · 2026Review
- Associations of Racial Discrimination with Resting-state Network Topology: A Mechanism for Post-traumatic Sensory Disruptions.Research square · 2026Article
- Associations between amygdala connectivity and experienced discrimination in children.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Frailty prediction in patients with chronic digestive system diseases: based on multi-task learning model.Frontiers in medicine · 2025Article
- Does Stress Explain the Effects of Sexual/Gender Minority Status on Children's Behavioral and Emotional Risk?Open journal of psychology · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveRacial discrimination drives health disparities among racial/ethnic minority youth, creating chronic stress that affects brain development and contributes to mental and behavioral health issues. This study analyzed data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development℠ (ABCD) Study to examine the neurobiological mechanisms linking discrimination to mental and behavioral health outcomes.
methodA sample of 3,321 racial/ethnic minority youth was split into training (80%, n = 2,674) and testing (20%, n = 647) groups. Propensity score-weighted machine learning was used to assess the effects of perceived discrimination on 2-year changes in resting-state functional connectivity between 3 subcortical regions (nucleus accumbens, amygdala, and hippocampus) and large-scale brain networks. Mediation analyses evaluated whether brain changes mediated sex-specific effects on internalizing or externalizing symptoms.
resultsPerceived discrimination was significantly associated with 2-year changes in connectivity of the nucleus accumbens, amygdala, and hippocampus in both cross-validation and independent testing. Key findings included decreases in nucleus accumbens connectivity with retrosplenial-temporal and sensorimotor (hand) networks, decreases in amygdala connectivity with the sensorimotor (mouth) network, and increases in hippocampal connectivity with the auditory network. These changes suggest accelerated maturation in these connections among youth reporting higher discrimination levels. Moderated mediation analyses revealed sex differences, with discrimination-related changes in nucleus accumbens connectivity linked to poorer internalizing outcomes in female participants.
conclusionThe results indicate that perceived racial discrimination experienced in adolescence have an impact on subcortical-cortical brain development, which affects mental and behavioral health outcomes in a sex-specific manner. PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY: Racial discrimination creates chronic stress for racial/ethnic minority youth, affecting their brain development and leading to mental and behavioral health challenges. A study of 3,321 youth from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development℠ (ABCD) Study used machine learning to show how discrimination alters connections among brain regions involved in emotions, reward, and stress. These findings suggested faster brain maturation in youth facing more discrimination, with girls showing a stronger link between brain changes and poorer mental health outcomes like anxiety and depression. DIVERSITY & INCLUSION STATEMENT: We worked to ensure race, ethnic, and/or other types of diversity in the recruitment of human participants. One or more of the authors of this paper self-identifies as a member of one or more historically underrepresented racial and/or ethnic groups in science.
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