Racism and alterations in brain structure and function: A narrative review of emerging neuroimaging evidence in racialized individuals

Racial discrimination functions as a chronic psychosocial stressor that underlies racial trauma and elevates risk for mental disorders among racialized individuals. Emerging neuroimaging research has identified associations between experiences of racial discrimination and alterations in brain structure and function. However, the limited number of studies among racialized individuals constitutes a major gap in the scientific literature, leading to critical deficiencies in scientific knowledge, clinical practice, and informed public health strategies. This narrative review synthesizes findings from 19 neuroimaging studies examining the associations between experiences of racial discrimination and brain structure and function among racialized individuals across the lifespan. Neuroimaging studies have revealed consistent alterations in neural circuits involved in emotion regulation, threat detection, cognitive control, and self-referential processing among Black and other racialized individuals with experiences of racial discrimination. Notably, experiences of racial discrimination are associated with increased salience network connectivity (e.g., amygdala-insula), reduced prefrontal connectivity, decreased white matter integrity, and cortical thinning in regions, such as the cingulate cortex and hippocampus. These neural alterations are linked to heightened vigilance, emotion dysregulation, and higher risk for mental and physical health problems. This review highlights the limitations of previous studies along with providing future research directions. Recent neuroimaging studies on racial discrimination reveal key methodological limitations, including reliance on cross-sectional designs, limited sample diversity, small sample sizes, and inadequate intersectional analyses. Future research should employ longitudinal, multimodal approaches with larger, more diverse samples to elucidate causal pathways and protective factors underlying racism-related neurobiological outcomes.