The stress of growing up poor can hurt a child’s brain development starting before birth, research suggests—and even very small differences in income can have major effects on the brain.
Researchers have long suspected that children’s behaviour and cognitive abilities are linked to their socioeconomic status, particularly for those who are very poor. The reasons have never been clear, although stressful home environments, poor nutrition, exposure to industrial chemicals such as lead and lack of access to good education are often cited as possible factors.
In the largest study of its kind, published on March 30 in Nature Neuroscience, a team led by neuroscientists Kimberly Noble from Columbia University in New York City and Elizabeth Sowell from Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, California, looked into the biological underpinnings of these effects. They imaged the brains of 1,099 children, adolescents and young adults in several US cities. Because people with lower incomes in the United States are more likely to be from minority ethnic groups, the team mapped each child’s genetic ancestry and then adjusted the calculations so that the effects of poverty would not be skewed by the small differences in brain structure between ethnic groups.
More here – Scientific American
“It does make us think the focus should be redirected at gestation and stresses like nutrition and exposure to toxins,” says Hallam Hurt, a neonatologist at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia who led the infant research study.”
Just from observing my fellow sheeple I would guess the answer lies between this and the fact that there is often no ‘brain’ food around as they grow up.
Poverty Shrinks Brains From Birth… Well, of course! We are all products of:
1)The environment we grow up in,
2) the habits we learn,
3) the attitudes we learn
A heck of a lot of people are followers rather than leaders when it comes to thinking for ourselves. We trust those who we learn from that they are teaching us TRUE data, and we don’t realize they are just these peoples beliefs.
If we are taught poverty and that is the environment we are surrounded in, then this is ingrained in our brains and everything associated with that, such as the abovementioned stresses and brain development, are all affected.
Cause and Effect.
An interesting concept, I think it has a good fit with Acemoglu and Robinson’s model of extractive and inclusive institutions in the development of nations. Although they would have to steer away from the eugenics minefield which would be sure to get the ethics people buzzing again.
As somewhat of a corollary. The long observed Flynn effect, that is a constant upward trajectory in IQ’s does seem to be coming to an end. In some countries such as Norway who have been keeping regular records it seems to have ended around the turn of last century. Combine this with the shrinking volume of the human brain which is about 15% smaller than it was 10,000 years ago and we may have hit our genetic upper limit and now be on the downward slope.