The poor brain

Posted: 22 May 2015 07:00 AM PDT

The human brain continues its development postnatally. It is a long process

that extends throughout, at least, the first two decades of life. Along these
years, environmental factors influence brain functions and, not surprisingly
because of its high plasticity, brain structure. Among the variables that may
affect the cognitive development is the socioeconomic status. Three main
dimensions of family life like parental educational attainment, occupation and
income may impact those developing brains in the family children. Possible
affected aspects include language, self-regulation, memory and emotional
responses that in turn would affect educational and professional
accomplishments throughout life. These studies are an interesting convergence
between sociology and neurobiology.
Most studies are centered on the cerebral cortex, understandable since it is the
brain region processing higher cognitive functions such as language, reading,
decision-making, and social skills, that directly affect school performance.
In these previous works, cortical volume is usually the quantified variable but
this measurement is a mixture of two parameters: cortical surface area and

cortical thickness, two variables that are distinct in their genetic control, their
evolution and their functional significance. The cerebral cortex is the outer
layer of the brain and is 2 to 4 millimeters thick. Cortical neurons are generated
next to the ventricles and they migrate outwards from the ventricular zone.
Different glial and neural populations are generated in a time ordered fashion
that is regulated by hundreds of genes and epigenetic regulatory mechanisms.
In addition, studies in both animals and humans have found that the cortex can
grow larger as a result of life experiences. However, it does not mean that
thicker cortex indicates more developed brains. Cortical thickness decreases in
childhood and early adolescence followed by a more gradual thinning in early
adulthood. The reason for this change is the pruning of neuronal prolongations
and the increase in myelination (white matter). By contrast, surface area
expands through early adolescence and then shrinks through middle
adulthood. Interestingly, more intelligent children have thinner cortices and
greater surface area than children with lower IQ.

Brain: dissection showing the base of the brain. Watercolour after W.H. Lizars,
ca. 1826. | Credit: Wellcome Library, London. Wellcome Images. Copyrighted
work available under Creative Commons Attribution only licence CC BY 4.0
This study aimed to study the effects of those socioeconomic variables in
cerebral cortex volume. It was carried out in a cohort of 1,099 individuals (531
girls and 568 boys), between 2 and 20 years and with normal development.
The study1 was published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, was led by
Kimberly Noble of Columbia University and Elizabeth Sowell of Childrens
Hospital Los Angeles in California was the senior author. The researchers
worked with a team of neuroscientists around the country to record the brain
images and thereafter they spent three years analyzing the magnetic
resonance imaging scans.
Previous studies relating socioeconomical aspects, brain structure and
cognitive abilities are severely affected by technical problems. Many articles
confound race and socioeconomic status. Then, a difference can be ascribed to
a different ethnic profile when it really responds to different incomes. A similar
problem can exist among different aspects of the socioeconomic status, e.g.
whether parental income is really parental education or both. Although both
aspects are correlated, their impact can influence differently their children
brain development. Thus, income can be more related with availability of
material goods from food to books whereas parental education influence is
supposedly carried out more through parents-child interaction.
The main result of the study was that poor children have smaller brains than
affluent children. The brains of children in families that earned less than 25,000
USD a year had surface areas 6 percent smaller than those whose families
earned 150,000 USD or more. Parental educationthe number of years that
parents had gone to schoolshowed a linear correlation with overall cortical
surface area. As a rough approximation, the children of parents with only a high

school education (12 years of education or less) had 3% less cortical surface
area than children whose parents had attended universities (15 years or more).
2
Finally, the poor children also scored lower on average on a battery of
cognitive tests.
It has been known for years that poverty and scarce resources to enrich the
environment during the development are correlated to poor school results, low
test scores and fewer life opportunities. The study by Noble et al. demonstrate
that it can be tied to physical differences in the brain.
It is unclear how the low income translate into smaller brains and we must
remember that correlation is not causation. As the first author has indicated
We can talk about links between parent education and family income and
childrens brain structure but we cant say for sure these differences are
causing differences in brain structure.
There are different possible explanations for the differences in brain size
depending of the economical status. 3 One is that low-income families have less
material opportunities including quality food, books or extracurricular activities.
The second hypothesis is that the influence is through an increase in health
issues caused by an intermittent or lower quality health care. A third possibility
could be that current difficulties in daily life causes environmental influences
such as stress, more frequent in families with chaotic lives caused by lack of
money. It is known that stress affects the brain development. A fourth idea
could be that people with low income has less abilities, cannot be selective to
whom they marry and engage with persons with less abilities and have children
with less abilities, i.e. there is a genetic component to intelligence, that is
reflected in the socioeconomic status an it is transferred to the next
generation.
It is amazing and a source of concern how powerful the economic influences
are on something as fundamental as brain structure and whether being born in
low-income families can establish barriers for the possible achievements of
their progeny. This study reinforces the idea that governments should support
small children at risk and give them a boost before they go to maternal school.
The results of this article emphasize how important is a public education
system, a public health care system, a public support to reduce the gap
between high and low income families and to give to any children all the
possibilities despite the salaries of his/her parents. Its on all of us in society to
make sure that all children have equal opportunities in life.
References
1. Noble KG, Houston SM, Brito NH, Bartsch H, Kan E, Kuperman JM,
Akshoomoff N, Amaral DG, Bloss CS, Libiger O, Schork NJ, Murray SS,
Casey BJ, Chang L, Ernst TM, Frazier JA, Gruen JR, Kennedy DN, Van Zijl P,
Mostofsky S, Kaufmann WE, Kenet T, Dale AM, Jernigan TL, Sowell ER
(2015) Family income, parental education and brain structure in children
and adolescents. Nat Neurosci 18(5): 773-778.

2. Balter M (2015) Poverty may affect the growth of childrens brains.

Science News.
3. Layton L (2015) New brain science shows poor kids have smaller brains
than affluent kids. Washington Post 15 de abril.