Anti-poverty programs may help poor children’s brains grow normally

1844, Frederick Engels pointed out in the book “The physical effects of the living environment of the poor had an impact from an early age.” He saw scrofula (cervical tuberculosis), rickets, typhus, cholera, and smallpox as representative examples of poverty being embodied in the bodies of members of the working class.

In the 1960s, neuroscientists began to find evidence that poor upbringing could affect young brain development. Marian Diamond, then a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley, Indicated Rats raised in “poor” conditions “impeded” brain development and learning ability.

What effect does poverty have on the brain?

In 2015, three studies reported that human children and adolescents who grew up in low-income families had lower cortical volume and performed relatively poorly on academic tests. The cortex is the outer layer of the brain.

One of the 2015 studies focused on another area, the hippocampus, along with the cortex.Columbia University’s Kimberly Noble and colleagues i found that Expanding the volume of this deeply rooted complex structure viewed by scientists As a “seat of learning and memory,” it was positively correlated with family socioeconomic status, but not with parental income.

Well, a study by researchers from Harvard University and the University of Washington was published in the journal earlier this month. nature communication, demonstrated Children who grow up in low-income families are actually at risk of having a smaller hippocampus. Researchers led by David Wiseman, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Stress and Development, have shown that generous anti-poverty policies significantly reduce this risk.

The findings highlight how state-level public policy could potentially address the correlation between brain development and low income.

The study highlights “how household finances are related to children’s brain development,” said Akash Gautam, a neuroscientist at the University of Hyderabad who studies hippocampal development. Hinduism. Children from low-income families may have smaller hippocampi, which may be related to later ‘social inequalities’. [their] Physical and mental health outcomes. ”

How was your research done?

The relationship between brain development and low income is relatively well established, but the role of anti-poverty policies in this relationship is less established.

Researchers have found that cognitive development in the adolescent brain (AIUEO) The study is “the largest long-term study of brain development and child health in the United States.”

Here, the authors examined brain scans of more than 10,000 children aged 9 to 11 in 17 US states. These states had different cost of living and various generous anti-poverty programs.

The programs the authors reviewed included two cash assistance schemes and Medicaid, a health insurance program.

The researchers found that hippocampal volumes were indeed larger in participants from higher-income families.

Hippocampal developmental disorders are associated with increased risk of psychopathologies such as major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. The researchers therefore also examined the relationship between household income and the incidence of internalized psychopathologies (eg, depression, anxiety, etc.) and externalized psychopathologies (eg, substance abuse, violent behavior) in children.

They found that family income was “negatively correlated” with the incidence of these psychopathologies. The higher the family income, the lower the incidence of internalizing and externalizing psychopathology in children.

The authors noted that the strength of these associations varied across the 17 states for which data were available, and asked whether these states’ cost of living and anti-poverty policies could influence these associations. examined.

“We observed a tripartite interaction between family income, cost of living, and a generous cash assistance program in predicting hippocampal volume,” the paper states. If he lived in a low-income household in a cost-of-living state and received generous cash benefits, his hippocampal volume was on average 34% higher than that of someone living in a low-income household in a cost-of-living state. It was big. Relatively high cost of living low cash payment.

Similarly, the authors found that for children raised in low-income households, “more generous cash transfers lead to greater reductions in internalized problems.”

The study therefore found that poverty can shape biological traits such as brain development, highlighting the role governments and public policies can play in ameliorating the biological impact of poverty.

Were there any shortcomings in this study?

Poverty is often a symptom of more systemic discrimination. For example, from 2007 to 2011, Native Americans, Alaskan Natives, and African Americans highest poverty rate Similarly, in India, communities listed as Scheduled Tribes (ST), Scheduled Castes (SC), and Other Underclass (OBC) are significantly poorer than communities not listed in these categories. Recent research.

So what if the patterns uncovered in this study were not due to poverty, but to racism? HinduismDr. Wiseman agreed with that possibility, adding that he tried to rule out as many alternative explanations as possible, including the racial and ethnic makeup of the sample, using supplemental analyses.

“The results are consistent across these analyses,” he said, adding that the results may not be directly applicable to India because “the macroeconomic situation in India is very different.”

But Dr. Wiseman says their findings “do something about the generalizable ‘intuition’ that policies and economic conditions that directly affect family financial resources are important for children’s brain development.” is backed by ,” he said.

The study also utilized the ABCD database, and was able to collect brain scan samples only from 17 of the 50 US states. Rohan Sarkar, a PhD scholar at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research in Kolkata, said that although the data set was more extensive than previous studies, the data were limited to 17 states, “not provided. “The power of reasoning on the ground” was limited.

How can anti-poverty policies help?

Sarkar and Gautham said the relationship between socioeconomic status and hippocampal development may not be “so simple.” Gautham says hippocampal size correlates with cognitive development and incidence of psychopathology, but a smaller hippocampus does not necessarily indicate that “children experience significant impairment in these areas.” That is not the case.

“The brain is a complex and adaptive organ, and compensatory mechanisms can mitigate these effects,” he added.

More generous anti-poverty policies could “amplify or reduce stressors associated with low income,” according to a new paper. In other words, access to more funding could “protect families from experiencing some of the chronic stressors associated with low income that can affect hippocampal development.” There is.

Finally, “generous” anti-poverty policies do more than just increase household income. It will also allow “family members to make decisions that reduce their stress, such as reducing their working hours, while reducing wages,” according to a new paper.

What does the future hold for research?

The authors of this paper used data collected in 2017-2018 for their study. But the youth participants have been returning year after year, says Dr. Weisman, and the researchers wondered “how the policy changes that have occurred since these data were collected … affect the trajectories of youth mental health and brain development.” It is said that it was possible to study “What kind of influence did it have?”

The study also explores how “investing in social safety net programs” will offset the high costs of tomorrow’s “addressing the mental health, educational and economic challenges arising from socioeconomic disparities in neurodevelopment”. It also revealed that it could be reduced.

Sayanthan Dutta (they/they) are queer trans freelance science writers, communicators and journalists. They are currently collaborating with feminist multimedia science collective TheLifeofScience.com and tweeting at @queersprings.