Welfare schemes may help poor children’s brains grow normally

General Studies Paper 2

CONTEXT

• The relationship between brain development and low income is relatively well-established, but the role of anti-poverty policies in this relationship is not. A recent study, based on the brain scans of over 10,000 children aged 9-11, located in 17 U.S. states, filled this gap.

POVERTY’S EFFECT ON THE BRAIN

• In 2015, three studies reported that human children and young adults growing up in low-income families had lower cortical volume and did relatively poorly in tests for academic performance. The cortex is the outer layer of the brain.
• Together with the cortex, one of the 2015 studies focused on another area: the hippocampus and found that the volume of this deep-seated convoluted structure, widely regarded by scientists as the “seat for learning and memory”, correlated positively with a family’s socioeconomic status, but not parental income.
• Now, a study by researchers from Harvard University and Washington University, published in May 2023 in the journal Nature Communication, has demonstrated that children growing up in low-income families indeed risk a smaller hippocampus and showed that generous anti-poverty policies substantially lower this risk.
• The finding highlights how state-level public policies can potentially address the correlation between brain development and low income and how Children from low-income families might have a smaller hippocampus, which in turn might relate to later inequities in [their] physical and mental health outcomes.

THE STUDY

• The researchers found that the hippocampal volume was indeed larger for participants belonging to families with relatively higher income.
• Impaired hippocampal development has been associated with higher risk of psychopathologies, such as major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.
• So the researchers also tested the relationship between family income and the incidence of internalising (e.g. depressive disorders, anxiety, etc.) and externalising psychopathologies (e.g. drug abuse, violent behaviour, etc.) in children.
• They found that family income was “negatively associated” with the incidence of these psychopathologies: higher the family income, lower the incidence of internalising and externalising psychopathologies in the children.
• So the study found that poverty could shape biological properties, like brain development, and highlighted the role governments and public policy could have in ameliorating the biological effects of poverty.

WELFARE CAN HELP!

• The brain is a complex and adaptable organ, and compensatory mechanisms can sometimes mitigate these effects. According to the new paper, more generous anti-poverty policies could amplify or reduce stressors associated with low income.
• That is, having access to more financial resources could shield families from experiencing some of the chronic stressors associated with low income that can influence hippocampal development.
• Finally, generous’ anti-poverty policies don’t just increase family income; they can also allow families to make decisions that lead to a decrease in wages but that also reduce stress, such as working fewer hours.

CONCLUSION

• The study also illustrated how investments in social safety net programs could lower the high cost of addressing mental health, educational, and economic challenges resulting from socioeconomic disparities in neurodevelopment tomorrow.