Similarly, high levels of property crime were negatively related to advantage because disadvantaged mothers tended to live in areas with higher property crime (r = 20.27, 95% CI = 20.16 to 20.37, p , .001). Higher levels of property crime were also associated with more psychosocial stress among mothers (r = 0.23, 95% CI = 0.13 to 0.33, p , .001). Prenatal Neighborhood Crime Exposure and Neonatal Functional Connectivity In linear regression models controlling for GA at birth and PMA at scan, functional connectivity between the thalamus-aDMN (b = 20.22, 95% CI = 20.34 to 20.12, p , .001), thalamus– anterior frontal parietal network (b = 20.16, 95% CI = 20.27 to 20.05, p = .005), amygdala-hippocampus (b = 20.12, 95% CI = 20.24 to 20.02, p = .02), and amygdala-aDMN (b = 20.17, 95% CI = 20.29 to 20.07, p = .002) was weaker for infants born to mothers living in areas with high rates of violent crime after correcting for multiple comparisons. Violent crime was also associated with reductions in amygdalathalamus (b = 20.11, 95% CI = 20.22 to 0.00, p = .059) and amygdala-amygdala (b = 20.11, 95% CI = 20.22 to 0.00, p = .053) connectivity, but these relationships did not meet the threshold for statistical significance. When advantage was added to the significant models, only decreases in the amygdala-hippocampus (b = 20.16, 95% CI = 20.29 to 20.03, p = .02) and thalamus-aDMN (b = 20.16, 95% CI = 20.29 to 20.04, p = .01) connectivity continued to be related to violent crime exposure, after correcting for multiple comparisons (Table 1 and Figure S3). Prenatal exposure to neighborhoods with high rates of property crimes was related to weaker neonatal functional connectivity between the thalamus-aDMN (b = 20.15, 95% CI = 20.25 to 20.04, p = .008) after controlling for advantage (Table 2 and Figure S3). In the negative control analysis, neither motor-motor nor motor-aDMN connectivity was related to violent or property crime (all p values . .2) (Table S2). Results largely remained unchanged when accounting for the percentage of blood tests with elevated lead levels (Table S3) and lifetime exposure to physical danger (Table S4). Mediations by Maternal Psychosocial Stress Maternal psychosocial stress partially mediated the direct associations between the thalamus-aDMN and both violent and property crimes (indirect effects; p = .03 and p = .03, respectively). These were partial mediations because the direct effects remained significant after accounting for the mediation pathway (Figure 4). No other associations between crime and functional connectivity that contributed variance over and above adversity were mediated by maternal psychosocial stress. DISCUSSION Consistent with hypotheses, our data show that prenatal exposure to objectively identified violent and property crimes is related to weaker connectivity between the amygdala, hippocampus, thalamus, and aDMN after accounting for other types of adversity. Both violent and property crime exposure during pregnancy were related to weaker thalamus-aDMN connectivity, with violent crime exposure being additionally related to weaker amygdala-hippocampus connectivity. Associations between prenatal crime exposure and thalamus-aDMN connectivity were mediated by self-reported levels of maternal psychosocial stress. These results suggest that living in an unsafe neighborhood may have additional effects on neonatal brain function over and above living in an impoverished area, which is consistent with prior research and conceptual models of adversity (24,25,27), and that maternal psychosocial stress plays a role in these associations. Frontolimbic Connectivity and the Role of the Thalamus These results are consistent with prior studies showing that that frontolimbic connectivity is related to survey measures of violent crime exposure in children and adolescents (31,37). In Figure 3. (A) Association between advantage (higher numbers represent increased advantage) and violent crime levels (higher numbers represent more violent crime), scaled to the national average of 100 (n = 319). (B) Association between psychosocial stress (higher numbers represent more psychosocial stress) and violent crime levels, scaled to the national average (n = 319). Each trend line was created from a linear model representing the bivariate correlations. The R and p values of this model are displayed in the upper right-hand corner. Prenatal Crime Exposure and Neonatal Brain Function Biological Psychiatry - -, 2022; -:-–- www.sobp.org/journal 5 Biological Psychiatry addition, studies using task-based fMRI paradigms of youths exposed to violence showed increased activation in the amygdala in response to angry faces (59) as well as increased amygdala, hippocampal, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex activation in an emotional response inhibition task (37). These findings broadly align with our results, although we also discovered several associations between prenatal crime exposure and neonatal thalamic connectivity. Despite its role in the limbic system, the thalamus has previously received limited attention, especially in relation to neighborhood crime. The thalamus is classically thought of as a relay station or gatekeeper for sensory information that flows from primary cortices to higher-level association cortices (60,61); yet it is important to highlight that the medial dorsal, anterior, and lateral dorsal nuclei also