How Poverty Affects the Brain

Scientists are now doing research specifically targeted at finding out how low socioeconomic status can affect brain development.  Dr. James Swain from the University of Michigan will soon begin testing on a group of over 50 young adult volunteers who have been tracked and studied since they were born.  Half of the group were born into poverty and the other half into working middle class homes.   Dr. Swain and other neuroscientists are “building on preliminary evidence that suggests the chronic stress of living in an impoverished household, among other factors, can have an impact on the developing brain.”   They are referring to studies which show that “low socioeconomic status may affect several areas of the brain, including the circuitry involved in language, memory and in executive functions, a set of skills that help us focus on a problem and solve it.”  Low socioeconomic status has a very high correlation with race and communities of color, so the outcome of these studies could inform not only social policy on early stage development for children in poverty but also shed light on racial inequities and help us to take steps to address these inequities earlier in childhood development.