Low childhood socioeconomic status (SES) predisposes individuals to altered trajectories of brain development and increased rates of mental illness. Brain connectivity at birth is associated with psychiatric outcomes. We sought to investigate whether SES at birth is associated with neonatal brain connectivity and if these differences account for socioeconomic disparities in infant symptoms at age 2 years that are predictive of psychopathology. Resting state functional MRI was performed on 75 full-term and 37 term-equivalent preterm newborns (n = 112). SES was characterized by insurance type, the Area Deprivation Index, and a composite score. Seed-based voxelwise linear regression related SES to whole-brain functional connectivity of five brain regions representing functional networks implicated in psychiatric illnesses and affected by socioeconomic disadvantage: striatum, medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC), and dorsal anterior cingulate cortex. Lower SES was associated with differences in striatum and vlPFC connectivity. Striatum connectivity with frontopolar and medial PFC mediated the relationship between SES and behavioral inhibition at age 2 measured by the Infant-Toddler Social Emotional Assessment (n = 46). Striatum-frontopolar connectivity mediated the relationship between SES and externalizing symptoms. These results, convergent across three SES metrics, suggest that neurodevelopmental trajectories linking SES and mental illness may begin as early as birth.

较低的儿童社会经济地位 (SES) 使个人容易改变大脑发育轨迹和增加精神疾病的发病率。出生时的大脑连通性与精神疾病结果有关。我们试图调查出生时的 SES 是否与新生儿大脑连通性有关，以及这些差异是否可以解释 2 岁时婴儿症状的社会经济差异，这些差异可预测精神病理学。对 75 名足月和 37 名等效足月早产儿（n = 112）进行了静息状态功能 MRI。SES 的特点是保险类型、区域剥夺指数和综合评分。基于种子的体素线性回归将 SES 与代表与精神疾病有关并受社会经济劣势影响的功能网络的五个大脑区域的全脑功能连接相关：纹状体、内侧前额叶皮层 (mPFC)、腹外侧前额叶皮层 (vlPFC) 和背前扣带皮层。较低的 SES 与纹状体和 vlPFC 连接的差异有关。纹状体与额极和内侧 PFC 的连接介导了 SES 与 2 岁行为抑制之间的关系，由婴儿-幼儿社会情绪评估（n = 46）测量。纹状体-额极连接介导了 SES 与外化症状之间的关系。这些结果在三个 SES 指标上收敛，