Functional MRI
scans show areas in the brains of poor children with normal connectivity
highlighted in red
and blue, and weakened connectivity shown in green. The areas in
green are among
several areas — detailed in other brain scans — where connections
are weakened in
children raised in poverty.
(January 16, 2016) Conditions
associated with poverty appear to interfere with how key brain regions connect
and increase depression risk in children
Many negative consequences are linked to growing up poor,
and researchers at Washington University St. Louis have identified one more:
altered brain connectivity.
Analyzing brain scans of 105 children ages 7 to 12, the
researchers 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.
Those connections, viewed using functional MRI scans, were
weaker, depending on the degree of poverty to which a child was exposed. The
poorer the family, the more likely the hippocampus and amygdala would connect
to other brain structures in ways the researchers characterized as weaker. In
addition, poorer preschoolers were much more likely to have symptoms of
clinical depression when they reached school age.