Seven and a Half Lessons About the Brain

overty may alter the development of the front of the cerebral cortex, namely the prefrontal cortex. This brain area is involved in a range of critical functions, including attention, language, and body budgeting.

Research shows that early and long exposure to poverty is bad for the developing brain.

persistent neglect, over a long time with no relief, is almost always harmful to a little brain.

This nontypical wiring imposes a pernicious burden on the body budget that accumulates over years, raising the odds of serious health problems later, such as heart disease, diabetes, and mood disorders like depression, all of which have metabolic underpinnings.

babies raised in severely socially impoverished conditions. Their brains develop smaller than average. Key brain regions are smaller too, and important areas of the cerebral cortex have fewer connections.

when that environment is missing key elements for healthy body budgeting, critical brain wiring can be pruned away.

ey also had trouble controlling themselves. Alongside the children’s mental and behavioral issues, their bodies were stunted, most likely because they grew up without caregivers to keep their body budgets solvent.

As a consequence of this social neglect, the Romanian orphans grew up intellectually impaired.

If you heard only one language as a baby, you’d need to relearn the ability to hear and distinguish sounds outside your language, which is hard.

If people interacted with you in multiple languages when you were a baby, then your brain was likely tuned and pruned to hear and distinguish the sounds in those languages.