The structure and growth of a child’s brain may be indirectly affected by their parents’ income, a study in the US has claimed.
In research involving more than a thousand children and young people, scientists found that those with poorer parents were more likely to have smaller brain surface area in key regions linked with language and reading.
The effects of income, as well as parent’s educational history, appeared to be independent of genetic factors, the researchers from nine American universities said.
Social and economic background has long been linked with variations in brain functioning, but the new research is thought to be the first to suggest these factors can even affect the structure of the brain itself.
A link between income and children’s diet, healthcare, lack of access to good schools and play areas, and even exposure to polluted areas may lie behind the connection, neuroscientists said.
Not all children of poorer families had smaller brain surface areas and the authors of the study said their findings did not mean that a person’s social status led to “an immutable trajectory of cognitive of brain development”.
[For more of this story, written by Charlie Cooper, go to http://www.independent.co.uk/l...claims-10144222.html]
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