Abstract
Understanding of human brain development has advanced rapidly as the field of developmental cognitive neuroscience (DCN) has matured into an established scientific discipline. Despite substantial progress, DCN lags behind other related disciplines in terms of diverse representation, standardized reporting requirements for socio-demographic characteristics of participants in pediatric neuroimaging studies, and use of intentional sampling strategies to more accurately represent the socio-demographic, ethnic, and racial composition of the populations from which participants are sampled. Additional efforts are needed to shift DCN towards a more inclusive field that facilitates the study of individual differences across a variety of cultural and contextual experiences. In this commentary, we outline and discuss barriers within our current scientific practice (e.g., research methods) and beliefs (i.e., what constitutes good science, good scientists, and good research questions) that contribute to under-representation and limited diversity within pediatric neuroimaging studies and propose strategies to overcome those barriers. We discuss strategies to address barriers at intrapersonal, interpersonal, community, systemic, and structural levels. Highlighting strength-based models of inclusion and recognition of the value of diversity in DCN research, along with acknowledgement of the support needed to diversify the field is critical for advancing understanding of neurodevelopment and reducing health inequities.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Article number | 101167 |
| Journal | Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience |
| Volume | 58 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Dec 2022 |
Funding
Funding for Garcini was provided by the National Institute of Health (NIH; K01HL150247). Arredondo thanks support by grant P2CHD042849, awarded to the Population Research Center at The University of Texas at Austin by the NIH. Church thanks the support of NIH (P50HD052117, subgrant Church) and the National Science Foundation (NSF; 1941193). Thomason and Berry thank NIH (U01 DA055338). Thomason also thanks the following NIH support (R01 ES032294, R01 MH126468, R01 MH125870). Finally, McLaughlin thanks the following NIH support (R01-MH106482, R37-MH119194). Any opinions, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not represent the views of NIH and/or NSF. A final key strategy for increasing representation in DCN is reprioritization of funding. Financial support is necessary to achieve most of the changes recommended to overcome existing barriers in recruiting and retaining diverse samples. Examples of financial support that have shown helpful in increasing representation include phased grant awards, incentives for recruitment and retention of diverse samples, and funding to support applied science projects and investigators conducting community-engaged research. For instance, phased grant awards provide support during a preparatory phase where specific community partnerships can be established or legal/ethical analyses can be performed to assure support for participants throughout the project, such occurred in the National Institutes of Health Healthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) initiative ( Volkow, Gordon, and Freund, 2021 ). For the HBCD study, competitively reviewed grants were provided to carry out preparatory work to establish community partnerships and protections that would scaffold later phases of the study. Creative funding solutions that reward diverse research efforts are key to enabling researchers to choose more challenging but important research directions.
Keywords
- Context
- Culture
- Diversity
- Inequities
- Neuroimaging
- Representation
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Cognitive Neuroscience
