Biology subjects

Davila, D. G.

Publications and source records attributed to Davila, D. G..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2021

Association between Neighborhood Socioeconomic Status and Executive System Activation in Youth

Low socioeconomic status has been shown to have detrimental effects on cognitive performance, including working memory (WM). As executive systems that support WM undergo functional neurodevelopment during adolescence, environmental stressors at both individual and community levels may have a particularly strong impact on cognitive outcomes. Here, we sought to examine how neighborhood socioeconomic status (SES) impacts task-related activation of the executive system during adolescence, and to determine whether this effect mediates the relationship between neighborhood SES and WM performance. To address these questions, we studied 1,158 youths (age 8-22) that completed a fractal n-back WM task during fMRI at 3T as part of the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort. We found that higher neighborhood SES was associated with greater activation of the executive system to WM load, including the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, posterior parietal cortex, and precuneus. These associations remained significant when controlling for related factors like parental education and exposure to traumatic events. Furthermore, high dimensional multivariate mediation analysis identified two distinct patterns of brain activity within the executive system that significantly mediated the relationship between neighborhood SES and task performance. Together, these findings underscore the importance of the neighborhood environment in shaping executive system function and WM in youth.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2021

ASLPrep: A Generalizable Platform for Processing of Arterial Spin Labeled MRI and Quantification of Regional Brain Perfusion

Arterial spin labeled (ASL) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is the primary method for non-invasively measuring regional brain perfusion in humans. We introduce ASLPrep, a suite of software pipelines that ensure the reproducible and generalizable processing of ASL MRI data.

bioengineering↗

bioRxiv2019

Advantages of Multi-shell Diffusion Models for Studies of Brain Development in Youth

Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) has advanced our understanding of how brain microstructure evolves over development. However, the proliferation of multi-shell diffusion imaging sequences has coincided with notable advances in the modeling of neuronal diffusion patterns, such as Neurite Orientation Dispersion and Density Imaging (NODDI) and Laplacian-regularized Mean Apparent Propagator MRI (MAPL). The relative utility of these newer diffusion models for understanding brain maturation remains sparsely investigated. Additionally, despite evidence that motion artifact is a major confound for studies of development, the relative vulnerability of these models to in-scanner motion has not been described. Accordingly, in a sample of 123 youth (ages 12-30) we evaluated DTI, NODDI, and MAPL for associations with age and in-scanner head motion at multiple scales, including mean white matter values, voxelwise analyses, and tractography-based structural brain networks. Our results reveal that multi-shell diffusion imaging sequences can be leveraged to robustly characterize neurodevelopment, even within the framework of DTI. However, these metrics of diffusion are variably impacted by motion, highlighting the importance of modeling choices for studies of movement-prone populations. Our findings suggest that while traditional DTI is sensitive to neurodevelopmental trends, contemporary modeling techniques confer key advantages for neurodevelopmental inquiries.

neuroscience↗