HHS REPORTS THAT POVERTY AFFECTS BRAIN GROWTH IN CHILDREN

FROM:  U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES 
Poverty, parenting, and kids’ brains

From the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, I’m Ira Dreyfuss with HHS HealthBeat.

Researchers say poverty can interfere with a child’s brain growth – but that attentive parenting  can offset at least some of the damage. Child psychiatrist Joan Luby of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis saw this in data on brain scans of 145 8- to 12-year-olds.

Luby says poor children tended to have smaller hippocampuses, important in learning and memory – possibly from stresses of poverty on the developing brain. But she says her study indicates the main driver was how nurturing parents were:

“It suggests that even in circumstances of great adversity, supportive parenting can be an important protective factor.”

The study in the journal JAMA Pediatrics was supported by the National Institutes of Health.