There are many negative consequences linked to growing up poor, and researchers at Washington University St. Louis - analyzing brain scans of 105 children ages 7 to 12 - found that key structures in the brain are connected differently in poor children than in kids raised in more affluent settings. In particular, the brain's hippocampus - a structure key to learning, memory and regulation of stress - and the amygdala - which is linked to stress and emotion - connect to other areas of the brain differently in poor children than in kids whose families had higher incomes. In addition, poorer preschoolers were much more likely to have symptoms of clinical depression when they reached school age. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/305208.php
Early environment can change your brain University of Wisconsin-Madison research by psychology professor Seth Pollak and economist Barbara Wolfe adds to evidence that childhood poverty can affect brain development and the ability to succeed. Their study is part of a growing body of socioeconomic brain research documenting what Joan Luby, a child psychiatry professor at Washington University in St. Louis, calls “poverty’s most insidious damage” — that poor children are up against their own biological development. Along with graduate students Nicole Hair and Jamie Hanson, Pollak and Wolfe found that poverty can cause structural changes in areas of the brain associated with school readiness skills. These parts of the brain are susceptible to circumstances often present in poor households, including stress, unstable housing, nutritional deficiencies, low academic stimulation and irregular access to health care. http://wisconsinwatch.org/2016/07/e...oll-on-young-brains-academic-achievement-gap/
