Poverty and Brains
I think it is best to just click and read this.
In a study published this year in Nature Neuroscience, several co-authors and I found that family income is significantly correlated with children’s brain size — specifically, the surface area of the cerebral cortex, which is the outer layer of the brain that does most of the cognitive heavy lifting. Further, we found that increases in income were associated with the greatest increases in brain surface area among the poorest children.
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we need definitive evidence that moves beyond correlation and helps us understand the causes of these neurological differences.
That’s why I am part of a team of social scientists and neuroscientists planning a large clinical trial in which 1,000 low-income mothers will be randomly assigned to receive either a large ($333) or small ($20) monthly income supplement for the first three years of their children’s lives. Periodic assessments of the children and their mothers will enable us to estimate the impact of these cash supplements on children’s cognitive, emotional and brain development, as well as the effect on family functioning.
Robert:
When in the last several decades was this new news?
The income/brain size relationship clearly breaks down with age. See , e.g. , Donald Trump.
For low income people, is $333 per month really enough off an increase to make a significant difference? How did you arrive at these numbers anyway?
My gut told me that brain size is not the determinative factor here. And I have found someone who agrees!
From: https://neuroscience.stanford.edu/news/ask-neuroscientist-does-bigger-brain-make-you-smarter
“To be honest, I find these correlation a bit unsettling. Clearly, there is more to intelligence than brain size, or classic geniuses like Albert Einstein, who had an average-sized brain, would have been out of luck!”
“Luckily, there is much more to a brain when you look at it under a microscope, and most neuroscientists now believe that the complexity of cellular and molecular organization of neural connections, or synapses, is what truly determines a brain’s computational capacity. This view is supported by findings that intelligence is more correlated with frontal lobe volume and volume of gray matter, which is dense in neural cell bodies and synapses, than sheer brain size. Other research comparing proteins at synapses between different species suggests that what makes up synapses at the molecular level has had a huge impact on intelligence throughout evolutionary history. So, although having a big brain is somewhat predictive of having big smarts, intelligence probably depends much more on how efficiently different parts of your brain communicate with each other.”
Cross posted from Economist’s View:
Although I’m not indifferent to the effect of poverty on the size of children’s brains, I am much more concerned about the effect of privilege on the quality of adults’ ethical thinking.
Richard Valencia has written extensively on “deficit thinking” the eternal search by educators to discover just what is wrong with children that impedes their education. Some of it is “compassionate” and some of it is downright vile. But this unending quest postpones indefinitely consideration of what is wrong with the system that fails children in so many ways.
Let’s face it: poverty is a design principle of the “economy” (culture) we live in. It is not an unintended side effect or an unfortunate accident. I prefer the label post-chattel slavery to “capitalist.” Blaming the victim is essential for diverting attention from this systemic design.
Excellent. This sounds very much like what I recommended in the “Mass Incarceration and Racism” post.
I just hope the government idiots don’t claim that’s income and cut their benefits.
“1,000 low-income mothers will be randomly assigned to receive either a large ($333) or small ($20) monthly income supplement for the first three years of their children’s lives.”
Hmm, Onion article? Or proposal by a sociopath? So hard to decide. But I have a suggestion. They should carry out this study in Tuskegee. .https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tuskegee_syphilis_experiment
So that in the future it is cited as only the second most despicable case of a medico-sociological experiment gone terribly wrong right from the design stage.
There is so much wrong here whether you start from a statistical, or economic, or straight moral evaluation that I don’t know where to start. I am quite literally repulsed at the idea of treating little children as lab animals for a scientific ‘test’ or relative starvation/impoverishment.
If this experiment was designed to measure the effects of lead or mercury on the brains of randomly selected children we would be calling for jail time. Or as in the case of the original Tuskegee syphilis experiment reparations. I mean are people really going to defend this by saying that this is after all $20 a month that these people wouldn’t have otherwise and so there is a positive welfare benefit even for the control population?
It calls to mind the shortest and in my mind most often apt verse in the whole Bible. John 11:35 “Jesus Wept”
Because I think some of these people totally misunderstand the original connotation and denotation of Matthew 19:14 “But Jesus said, Suffer little children”
No! No! No! That is NOT the concept in play here!.
Here we go again thinking that correlation is causation but if you want to think this way it might explain why I’m so smart. ..I think there may be a stronger correlation to the amount of lead found in a persons blood that later in life could cause mental illness. Just look and think about how many old houses with lead water pipes many kids grew up in and still today. How many widow sills or baby cribs did you chew on that had lead paint? Better yet how many fire works shows and gun ranges do you go to where the people love the smell of gun powder? Or the old gas station pump smell of leaded gas that many liked putting in their old hot rods? Some say that the long term effects of this lead poisoning causes one to become ill with anger and rage later in life. Is this what is happening to the cops and other shooters many who have use the indoor ranges over the years? Are they slowly poisoning their brains? Is there any correlation to mass shooters?
Kevin Drum is all over the lead issue.
The correlation between the drop in the use of lead paint and leadeed gasoline and violent crime in this country is almost undeniable particularly when combined in the lag in remediation in the inner city. Its bang on and has gone in the last couple year from some left blogger’s hobbyhorse to a near sociological consensus.
The orginal main piece is here: http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2013/01/lead-crime-link-gasoline
Though nobody I know has before tried to link it back to cop shooters. It could be, my late brother was a gun “enthusiast” (to put it mildy) who cooked his own powder and handloaded his weapons often with self-cast bullets. He ended up having to be chelated (given anti-metal/blood cleaners) and despite being a really kind-hearted person (loved kids and animals) had a clinical anger-management problem. So yeah lead may have had a big part in that, I hadn’t really thought about the link until today.
Bruce:
Flint, MI changed from lake water to river water to save money. This went untreated for corrosiveness which caused damage to lead pipes and lead soldered joints tainting the water. Children in Flint now have high levels of lead in their blood after only a year. What is also bad is the state covered up for this:
“state MDEQ official, Stephen Busch, responded to a request from EPA Region 5, the federal agency that oversees MDEQ, that the new water system in Flint did have a corrosion control program in place.”
“In April, according to the emails, the EPA Region 5 official later found out that was not true. Flint, it turns out, did not have a corrosion-control program in place.”
Flint has a high population of minorities .
I don’t understand, William — who seems to be thinking that correlation is causation?
As for fireworks, forget it. Gunpowder does not contain lead.
“Clearly, there is more to intelligence than brain size, or classic geniuses like Albert Einstein, who had an average-sized brain, would have been out of luck!.”
The study did not say brain volume. It said brain surface area, which is quite different, because of surface convolutions. Gyrification (convolution) of the cortex is positively correlated with IQ.
“Here we go again thinking that correlation is causation but if you want to think this way it might explain why I’m so smart.”
And that is exactly what the follow up study is designed to determine. They have found the correlation. In the next step they want to figure out causation. It is not a far fetched hypothesis. Neurologists have already determined that environmental influences can cause structural changes in the brain.
I’ll bet you’ll also find a strong correlation between children’s brain
size and their parents’ IQ.
BillB wrote: “The study did not say brain volume. It said brain surface area, which is quite different, because of surface convolutions. Gyrification (convolution) of the cortex is positively correlated with IQ.”
The graduate student at the Stanford University School of Medicine which I quoted seems to disagree with you:
https://neuroscience.stanford.edu/news/ask-neuroscientist-does-bigger-brain-make-you-smarter
Here is her last paragraph again:
“Luckily, there is much more to a brain when you look at it under a microscope, and most neuroscientists now believe that the complexity of cellular and molecular organization of neural connections, or synapses, is what truly determines a brain’s computational capacity. This view is supported by findings that intelligence is more correlated with frontal lobe volume and volume of gray matter, which is dense in neural cell bodies and synapses, than sheer brain size. Other research comparing proteins at synapses between different species suggests that what makes up synapses at the molecular level has had a huge impact on intelligence throughout evolutionary history. So, although having a big brain is somewhat predictive of having big smarts, intelligence probably depends much more on how efficiently different parts of your brain communicate with each other.”
Jerry Critter asked “For low income people, is $333 per month really enough off an increase to make a significant difference?”
…thus demonstrating that J.C. has not had much contact with low income people. For many of the poorest Americans, that payment (if not taxable) would effectively double their income. It may be beer money to some, but to others it would be a godsend.
Resurgence of the elites would not be complete without baggage. Phrenology anyone?
Non-sequitur much, Chris?