The profound impact of poverty on brain development and behavior

Summary: A new review links low socioeconomic status (SES) to significant changes in brain development, behavior and cognitive outcomes. The review synthesizes existing research to present a unified framework showing how factors common in low SES environments, such as poor nutrition, chronic stress, and poor living conditions, negatively influence neurodevelopment.

This disorder can lead to decreased language skills, decreased educational attainment, and a higher risk of mental disorders. By describing how these conditions perpetuate intergenerational poverty, the review highlights the urgency of developing targeted interventions to break this vicious cycle.

Key facts:

1. Low SES contributes to chronic stress and poor environmental conditions, which can suppress neurogenesis and negatively impact cognitive development from an early age.
2. The review provides a framework linking economic and social conditions to impacts on mental health, educational achievement and behavior across the life course.
3. This suggests the need for more research into specific interventions that could mitigate the effects of low SES on brain development and help break the cycle of intergenerational poverty.

Source: De Gruyter

What determines mental health, school performance, and even cognitive development?

New review in De Gruyter’s. Neuroscience Reviews suggests that poverty and low socioeconomic status (SES) are key contributing factors.

Other studies have examined the separate effects of poverty on the brain and behavior. However, this new review represents the first unified framework that uses evidence from the literature to directly link brain changes resulting from low SES to behavioral, pathological, and developmental outcomes.

SES refers to the social status of an individual or family and includes factors such as wealth, occupation, educational level, and living conditions. Beyond its impact on everyday life, EDS can also have far-reaching effects on our brains that begin in childhood and last into adulthood.

So how can poverty and low SES change the brain? The review examines the negative effects of poor nutrition, chronic stress and environmental hazards (such as pollution and inadequate housing), which are more likely to affect low SES families.

These factors can impair children’s brain development, which in turn can affect their language skills, educational attainment, and risk of mental illness.

For example, low SES families are more likely to experience increased levels of stress, which can affect their children from an early age. Sustained stress can reduce the rate of neurogenesis (the growth of new neurons) in the hippocampus, which can impair learning ability and negatively impact educational attainment and career opportunities later in life.

The unified framework proposed by the researchers also helps explain the generational poverty that leaves children from SES families unable to escape their situation when they grow up to become parents themselves. This vicious cycle can be difficult to break.

Interestingly, the researchers provide an extensive list of proposed studies that could test the validity of their concept and find new ways to break the cycle of intergenerational poverty. These include focusing on the effects of low SES on specific brain regions and identifying methods to improve affected children’s school performance.

The review is timely as inequality in society is increasing. Identifying the specific mechanisms underlying intergenerational poverty can help researchers and policymakers develop new early interventions.

The new framework recognizes the multifactorial nature of intergenerational poverty and can pave the way for more holistic and complex social interventions that recognize this complexity.

“This study sheds light on how poverty and SES impact not only people’s current living conditions, but also their cognitive development, mental health and future opportunities,” said Dr. Eid Abo Hamza from Al Ain University in the United Arab Arab Emirates. Emirates, first author of the review.

“By understanding these relationships, society can better address inequality and support those who are disadvantaged, potentially leading to interventions that can help break the cycle of poverty.”

About this Poverty and Neurodevelopment Research News

Author: Mauricio Quinones
Source: De Gruyter
Contact: Mauricio Quinones – De Gruyter
Image: Image courtesy of Neuroscience News.

Original research: Open access.
“The Impact of Poverty and Socioeconomic Status on Brain, Behavior, and Development: A Unified Framework,” by Eid Abo Hamza et al. Neuroscience Reviews

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Abstract

The effects of poverty and socioeconomic status on brain, behavior, and development: A unified framework.

In this article, we provide the first comprehensive overview and unified framework of the effects of poverty and low socioeconomic status (SES) on the brain and behavior.

Although there is a wealth of research on the effects of low SES on the brain (including the cortex, hippocampus, amygdala, and even neurotransmitters) and behavior (including educational attainment, language development, and the development of psychopathological disorders), previous studies have not integrated behavioral and educational disorders. and results of neural studies in one structure.

Here we argue that the effects of poverty and low SES on brain and behavior are interrelated. In particular, due to resource constraints, poverty and low SES are associated with poor nutrition, high levels of stress in caregivers and their children, and exposure to socioenvironmental hazards, according to previous research.

These psychological and physical injuries affect the normal development of certain brain areas and neurotransmitters.

Dysfunction of the amygdala can lead to the development of psychopathological disorders, and dysfunction of the hippocampus and cortex is associated with delayed learning and speech development, as well as poor academic performance.

This, in turn, perpetuates poverty among children, leading to a vicious cycle of poverty and psychological/physical impairment. In addition to providing economic assistance to low-income families, interventions should target the neural abnormalities caused by poverty and low SES in early childhood.

Importantly, recognizing the brain abnormalities caused by early childhood poverty can help improve economic justice. In the current study, we provide a comprehensive list of future studies that will help understand the effects of poverty on the brain.