Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 118, Issue 24, Pages -Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2105304118
Keywords
income; adversity; molar eruption; development
Categories
Funding
- Jacobs Foundation Early Career Award
- National Institute on Drug Abuse [1R34DA050297-01]
- NSF Graduate Research Fellowships
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Exposure to early adversity and lower family income are significantly associated with earlier eruption of the first permanent molars in children, indicating that stress can impact the pace of biological development in early childhood, as reflected in the timing of molar eruption.
Exposure to adversity can accelerate biological aging. However, existing biomarkers of early aging are either costly and difficult to collect, like epigenetic signatures, or cannot be detected until late childhood, like pubertal onset. We evaluated the hypothesis that early adversity is associated with earlier molar eruption, an easily assessed measure that has been used to track the length of childhood across primates. In a preregistered analysis (n = 117, ages 4 to 7 y), we demonstrate that lower family income and exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are significantly associated with earlier eruption of the first permanent molars, as rated in T2-weighted magnetic resonance images (MRI). We replicate relationships between income and molar eruption in a population-representative dataset (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey; n = 1,973). These findings suggest that the impact of stress on the pace of biological development is evident in early childhood, and detectable in the timing of molar eruption.
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