Structural Factors & Mental Health
How socioeconomic disadvantage and other structural conditions become embodied in brain function, physiology, and behavior.
Department of Psychology, Ningbo University
Hao Lab
We study how structural factors, including socioeconomic status and gender, get under the skin to shape brain function, physiology, behavior, and mental health.
- Focus Social & affective neuroscience
- Methods Behavior, physiology, neuroimaging
- Questions Emotion, depression, autism, inequality
About The Lab
Mental health in social context.
Led by Yu (Hannah) Hao, Ph.D., the lab examines why mental health risks are unevenly distributed across social environments and how those differences are reflected in emotion regulation, affective processing, and neural systems.
The group is especially interested in socioeconomic status-related disparities in depression and anxiety, as well as the behavioral and neural profiles that shape social interaction in autism.
Research
What We Study
Emotion Regulation
How people process positive and negative emotions, transition between affective states, and regulate emotion in daily life.
Depression Across Contexts
Why depression may vary across socioeconomic contexts, including cognitive bias, stress, amygdala function, and symptom profiles.
Autism, Anxiety & Social Interaction
Behavioral and neural profiles of social anxiety, depression, self-perception, and social functioning across the autism spectrum.
People
The Hao Lab Team
The lab is launching at Ningbo University and building a research community around social and affective neuroscience, mental health disparities, and neurodiversity.
Principal Investigator
Yu (Hannah) Hao, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology, Department of Psychology, Ningbo University. Ph.D., Cornell University; postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Publications
Selected Work
Selected publications from the current profile, with links to publisher pages or DOI records where available.
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2026
Hao, Y., Banker, S.M., Schafer, M. et al. Autism with social anxiety is associated with acquiescent behaviors and enlarged amygdala volume. Translational Psychiatry.
10.1038/s41398-026-04179-z -
2026
Hao, Y., Xu, C., Kweon, H., & Farah, M. J. What is the relation between major depressive disorder and amygdala reactivity? Journal of Affective Disorders, 121602.
10.1016/j.jad.2026.121602 -
2025
Hao, Y., Banker, S., Trayvick, J., Barkley, S., Peters, A. W., Thinakaran, A., McLaughlin, C., Gu, X., Schiller, D., & Foss-Feig, J. Understanding depression in autism: the role of subjective perception and anterior cingulate cortex volume. Molecular Autism, 16, 9.
10.1186/s13229-025-00638-4 -
2024
Hao, Y., & Hu, L. Lower childhood socioeconomic status is associated with greater neural responses to ambient auditory changes in adulthood. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 36(6), 979-996.
10.1162/jocn_a_02151 -
2023
Hao, Y., & Farah, M. J. Heterogeneity of depression across the socioeconomic spectrum. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(16), e2222069120.
10.1073/pnas.2222069120 -
2023
Hao, Y., Evans, G.W., & Farah, M.J. Pessimistic cognitive biases mediate socioeconomic status and children's mental health problems. Scientific Reports, 13, 5191.
10.1038/s41598-023-32482-y -
2022
Hao, Y., Bertolero, M., & Farah, M. J. Anger, fear, and sadness: Relations to socioeconomic status and the amygdala. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 34(10), 1928-1938.
10.1162/jocn_a_01892 -
2022
Hao, Y., De France, K., & Evans, G. W. Persistence on challenging tasks mediates the relationship between childhood poverty and mental health problems. International Journal of Behavioral Development, 46(6), 562-567.
10.1177/01650254221116870 -
2020
Hao, Y., & Farah, M. J. The affective neuroscience of socioeconomic status: implications for mental health. BJPsych Bulletin, 44(5), 202-207.
10.1192/bjb.2020.69
News
Recent Updates
New article in Journal of Affective Disorders
Hannah Hao and colleagues published work on major depressive disorder, vulnerability, and amygdala reactivity.
New article in Translational Psychiatry
Hannah Hao and colleagues published work on social anxiety, acquiescent behaviors, and amygdala volume in autism.
Hannah Hao joins Ningbo University
Prof. Hao joined the Department of Psychology at Ningbo University after postdoctoral training at the University of Pennsylvania and Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
APS Rising Star
Prof. Hao was named a 2025 Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science.
Contact
Connect With The Lab
Prospective students, collaborators, and community partners interested in mental health disparities, affective neuroscience, and autism research are welcome to get in touch.