Childhood food insecurity can be considered a form of deprivation that disrupts cognitive and emotional development. Deprivation-based adversity has been uniquely associated with reductions in total cortical grey matter volume (Sheridan et al., 2012). While food insecurity represents a lack of expected environmental inputs, its unique impact on the developing brain and psychological well-being (independent of general poverty) remains under-researched. This longitudinal study utilized a high-adversity subsample from the Duke Preschool Anxiety Study (DPAS; N = 60). We conducted three primary analyses to assess: (1) the association between food insecurity and cortical thickness at two timepoints during childhood, (2) the association between food insecurity and psychopathology, and (3) the moderating role of maternal mental health on the relationship between food insecurity and psychopathology. Results indicated that while household income-to-needs ratio significantly predicted psychopathology diagnoses at baseline (ß = 1.738, p = .0164), food insecurity was not a unique independent predictor of psychopathology, nor did maternal mental health significantly moderate this relationship. However, whole-brain analyses revealed a significant negative association between food insecurity and cortical thickness in the right superior parietal cortex that remained stable across development. These findings highlight the specific neurobiological signatures of nutritional deprivation and suggest that comprehensive poverty alleviation is also necessary to address the long-term psychological and structural outcomes of early childhood adversity.
Ria Patel (Wed,) studied this question.