Association between income and the hippocampus

Facets of the post-natal environment including the type and complexity of environmental stimuli, the quality of parenting behaviors, and the amount and type of stress experienced by a child affects brain and behavioral functioning. Poverty is a type of pervasive experience that is likely to influenc...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2011-05, Vol.6 (5), p.e18712
Main Authors: Hanson, Jamie L, Chandra, Amitabh, Wolfe, Barbara L, Pollak, Seth D
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adaptation
Adolescent
Algorithms
Automation
Behavior
Biology
Brain
Brain research
Child
Child behavior
Children
Children & youth
Education
Environmental effects
Family income
Female
Hippocampus
Hippocampus - anatomy & histology
Humans
Image acquisition
Income
Learning
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Medicine
Memory
Morphometry
Neurobiology
Neurosciences
Parenting
Parents & parenting
Pediatrics
Personal income
Poverty
Registration
Social and Behavioral Sciences
Socioeconomic Factors
Socioeconomics
Stress
Stress (Psychology)
Stress management
Stresses
Studies
Substantia grisea
Trends
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Summary:Facets of the post-natal environment including the type and complexity of environmental stimuli, the quality of parenting behaviors, and the amount and type of stress experienced by a child affects brain and behavioral functioning. Poverty is a type of pervasive experience that is likely to influence biobehavioral processes because children developing in such environments often encounter high levels of stress and reduced environmental stimulation. This study explores the association between socioeconomic status and the hippocampus, a brain region involved in learning and memory that is known to be affected by stress. We employ a voxel-based morphometry analytic framework with region of interest drawing for structural brain images acquired from participants across the socioeconomic spectrum (n = 317). Children from lower income backgrounds had lower hippocampal gray matter density, a measure of volume. This finding is discussed in terms of disparities in education and health that are observed across the socioeconomic spectrum.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0018712