SEATTLE — There have been multiple studies published that prove childhood poverty affects the ability of emotional control later in adult life. It is thought that the stressful exposure poverty brings to developing brains causes permanent damage to the brains ability to deal with stress.
This fact was published by a research project done by Professor K. Luan Phan who is Director of the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Research Programs at the University of Illinois at Chicago.
“Our findings suggest that the stress-burden of growing up poor may be an underlying mechanism that accounts for the relationship between poverty as a child and how well your brain works as an adult,” Phan stated.
According to the research project, subjects who grew up poorest at nine years of age performed the worst on the psychological tests. In these results it did not matter if the subjects successfully climbed out of poverty. Childhood poverty was the overriding factor that determines brain function success.
In a similar study done by researchers at the Washington University in St. Louis. Again, results reflected that children raised in poverty have poorer cognitive abilities and are at a greater risk for psychiatric illnesses.
This particular study analyzed the brain scans of 105 children of ages 7 to 12. In poor children, the key structures in the brain are connected differently than those rose affluently.
Researchers explained that specifically, it was the brain’s hippocampus that was connected to different areas of the brain in poor children. The hippocampus is the key structure to learning, memory, and regulation of stress. The full study can be found on The American Journal of Psychiatry’s website.
The effects don’t just stick to the domestic U.S. Globally, there are 2.2 billion children in the world, and 1 billion of these children live in poverty.
The numbers go even further. There are around 27-28 percent of these children that are estimated to be underweight or stunted in their physical growth. In addition,nearly 1 billion children entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their name.
The numbers are shocking, and the research proves that there are even further concerns than just the amount of people living in global poverty. There can be long term problems associated with these current issues.
The head researcher from the Washington study, Deanna M. Barch, assured people to not give up hope though. She said that childhood poverty won’t put a child on a determined path, but these findings remind us that it is important to remember there are more complex issues associated with poverty.
“If we hope to intervene, we need to do it early so that we can help shift children onto the best possible developmental trajectories, “the key researcher in the Washington study,” Barch told the Washington University School of Medicine.
– Katie Grovatt
Photo: Flickr