New study investigates the link between family income and brain development

Researchers at The Saban Research Institute of Children's Hospital Los Angeles, CA, and Columbia University Medical Center in New York, NY, have published the findings of a new study that investigates associations between socioeconomic factors and children's brain development in the journal Nature Neuroscience. 

 "While for no reason implying a child's socioeconomic circumstances bring about immutable adjustments to brain development or cognition," says Elizabeth Sowell, PhD, director from the Developmental Cognitive Neuroimaging Laboratory, part in the Institute for that Developing Mind at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, "our data declare that wider entry to resources likely afforded because of the more affluent may cause differences in a child's brain structure."


Sowell and colleagues state that theirs could be the largest study available to date - including 1,099 participants going to the multisite Pediatric Imaging, Neurocognition and Genetics (PING) study.

The participants' brains were measured using high-resolution magnetic renouncing imaging (MRI) scans. Socioeconomic data - including parent education and family income - were supplied by demographic and developmental history questionnaires.

Analyzing the outcome, they found that income was "nonlinearly associated" with brain floor.
Small family income differences related to 'relatively large' brain differences

First author Dr. Kimberly G. Noble, assistant professor of pediatrics and director with the Neurocognition, Early Experience and Development (NEED) Lab of Columbia University Medical Center, explains the finding:

    "Specifically, among children from your lowest-income families, small differences in income were linked to relatively large differences in surface in a number of regions on the brain regarding skills essential for academic success."

However, among children from higher-income families, incremental increases in income level were found to be regarding smaller differences in brain expanse. Improved performance in cognitive skills was also linked to higher income, along with the researchers take into account that these cognitive differences may very well be accounted for because of the greater brain floor.

The researchers talk about that family earnings are linked to nutrition, medical care, schools, play areas and also air quality - all factors that could contribute to brain development.

"Future research may address the question of whether changing a child's environment," says Sowell, "for instance, through social policies targeted at reducing family poverty, could modify the trajectory of brain development and cognition for that better."
Disadvantaged children 'tight on gray matter' than kids from high-income families

A 2013 study conducted by researchers on the University of Wisconsin-Madison discovered that children from low-income families below the knob on gray matter than children from families with higher incomes. Gray matter is very important brain tissue for processing information and executing actions.

Children from low-income families also had less well-developed parietal and frontal brain regions, that the researchers suggested might explain behavioral, learning and attention conditions are more common among children from poor families.

The parietal lobe is usually a "network hub" with the brain, connecting different regions. The front lobe is "the part in the brain we use to regulate our attention and regulate our behavior," explained UW-Madison psychology professor Seth Pollak.

"Those are difficulties children have when transitioning to kindergarten," Pollak elaborated, "when educational disparities begin: can you pay attention? Can you avoid a tantrum and grow in your seat? Can you get yourself work on a project?"