Poverty poses harmful effects on children’s brain development along with causing other negative issues

A new study suggests that living in poverty may have long-lasting harmful consequences on the brain development as well as emotional health and academic achievement of children.

Joan L. Luby, child psychiatrist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis said, “Our research has shown that the effects of poverty on the developing brain, particularly in the hippocampus, are strongly influenced by parenting and life stresses experienced by the children.”

Changes in the architecture of the brain have been identified in the children with high possibility of leading to lifelong problems with depression, difficulties and limitations in their ability of coping with stress.

The study also provides sufficient evidence which suggests that growing up in poverty has detrimental effects on the brain. If parents, particularly the ones living below the poverty line are taught nurturing skills then it may be providing a lifetime of benefits for their children.

Luby in JAMA Paediatrics said, “Early childhood interventions to support a nurturing environment for these children must now become our top public health priority for the good of all.”

It was found that low-income children had irregular brain development as well as lower scores in standardized test with about an estimated 20% gap in achievement as explained by developmental lags in the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain.

Luby said, “In developmental science and medicine, it is not often that the cause and solution of a public health problem become so clearly elucidated. We have a rare roadmap to preserving and supporting our society’s most important legacy, the developing brain. This unassailable body of evidence taken as a whole is now actionable for public policy.”