How does racial discrimination impact brain structure?
Our recently published study (“Racial discrimination and white matter microstructure in a trauma-exposed black population”) was designed to examine how experiences of racial discrimination are associated with brain structure, specifically white matter. White matter pathways are the main routes of communication in the brain, and they take a long time to develop, with full maturation occuring around mid-30s. These critical pathways are negatively affected by stress.
116 Black American women reported on the number of types of racial discrimination they experienced in their lifetime (at work, at school, while shopping, etc). They then underwent a special type of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that reveals the integrity of white matter pathways. We found that those who experienced more types of racial discrimination had more degraded white matter integrity.
Experiences of racial discrimination correlate negatively with the integrity of these white matter tracts. This graphic highlights three specific tracts identified by this study — the corpus callosum (blue), left anterior cingulum (red), and bilateral superior longitudinal fasciculus (yellow) — from three different vantage points.
These results suggest that experiencing racial discrimination does influence the brain’s structure. Specifically, it has a negative effect on the white matter tracts.
Racial discrimination has been linked to negative mental and physical health outcomes, including brain health (e.g., Alzheimer’s disease). These findings suggest how this might happen. Racial discrimination may increase vulnerability to developing brain health problems in Black Americans by degrading white matter pathways.