Prenatal family income, but not parental education, is associated with resting brain activity in 1-month-old infants

Childhood socioeconomic disadvantage is associated with disparities in development and health, possibly through adaptations in children’s brain function. However, it is not clear how early in development such neural adaptations might emerge. This study examined whether prenatal family socioeconomic status, operationalized as family income and average years of parental education, prospectively predicts individual differences in infant resting electroencephalography (EEG; theta, alpha, beta, and gamma power) at approximately 1 month of age (N = 160). Infants of mothers reporting lower family income showed more lower-frequency (theta) and less higher-frequency (beta and gamma) power. These associations held when adjusting for other prenatal and postnatal experiences, as well as infant demographic and health-related factors. In contrast, parental education was not significantly associated with infant EEG power in any frequency band. These data suggest that lower prenatal family income is associated with developmental differences in brain function that are detectable within the first month of life.