Neue Forschungsergebnisse zeigen, dass Kinder, die angaben, sich in ihrer Nachbarschaft weniger sicher zu fühlen, tendenziell kleinere Amygdala haben, eine tiefe Gehirnstruktur, die dabei hilft, Bedrohungen einzuschätzen und Emotionen zu verarbeiten. Sie zeigten auch häufiger Anzeichen von Depressionen, Angstzuständen und Aufmerksamkeitsdefizit-/Hyperaktivitätsstörungen

Children and adolescents already have a lot on their minds, from schoolwork to friendships to family dynamics. If they also worry about the safety in their own neighborhoods, those mental tasks might become even more difficult. A new study led by Patrick Lindsley, a graduate student in the Cognitive Control & Psychopathology Laboratory in psychological and brain sciences, shows that fears about crime and violence can potentially be challenging for young people and how they think and behave.

“Cognitive function during adolescence can set the foundation for the rest of a person’s lifetime,” Lindsley said. “We found that perceptions of neighborhood safety — or lack thereof — are associated with changes in brain structure and cognitive functioning.”

The study — based on surveys and testing of nearly 12,000 adolescents who were followed for two years from ages 9–10 to 11–12— was published in Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience. Co-authors are former psychological and brain sciences graduate student Nourhan Elsayed, PhD ’25, and Deanna Barch, the Gregory B. Couch Professor of Psychiatry at WashU Medicine and a professor of psychological and brain sciences in Arts & Sciences, all at Washington University in St. Louis.

The WashU team found that fears over neighborhood safety may leave a mark on young brains. For example, children who reported feeling less safe in their neighborhoods tended to have smaller amygdalas, a deep brain structure that helps assess threats and process emotions. They were also more likely to show signs of depression, anxiety, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and conduct disorders, and they tended to score lower on cognitive tests, including tests designed to measure focus, memory and reading ability. “These data show that children’s perceptions of their environment can relate to many critical aspects of their development, including their mental health and their ability to think and learn,” Barch said.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1878929325001562

So curious about the functional vs structural changes as well. Glad that this included differences in perceived and objective violence but further work needs to be done to create specificity in the neurological causes. Exposure to violence and anxiety are clearly correlated under many different psychological aspects we can understand but we can go so much further in this research