Childhood Brain Development

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Recommended: Poverty and its effects on mental health

Importance The study provides novel data to inform the mechanisms by which poverty negatively impacts childhood brain development.
Objective To investigate whether the income-to-needs ratio experienced in early childhood impacts brain development at school age and to explore the mediators of this effect.
Design, Setting, and Participants This study was conducted at an academic research unit at the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis. Data from a prospective longitudinal study of emotion development in preschool children who participated in neuroimaging at school age were used to investigate the effects of poverty on brain development. Children were assessed annually for 3 to 6 years prior to the time of a magnetic resonance …show more content…

This represents a critical gap in the literature and an urgent national and global public health problem based on statistics that more than 1 in 5 children are now living below the poverty line in the United States …show more content…

Consistent with animal data, Tottenham et al17 showed an association between early institutional rearing and larger amygdala volumes. While animal data would suggest that institutional rearing would lead to reduced hippocampal volume, some investigators have suggested that such effects may not become evident in humans until later in life.18 Consistent with this, decreased hippocampal volumes have been found in numerous studies of adults who experienced high levels of childhood stress/trauma.19,20 In spite of this hypothesized delayed hippocampal effect, a positive impact of early supportive parenting on hippocampal development has been detected as early as school

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