Socio-economic status, the brain and nature/nurture

A new, fascinating study of over 23K individuals who had undergone both MRI and genotyping, to see how socio-economic (e.g. income, education, occupation, and neighborhood quality) status relates to brain anatomy. Complex story of both genes and environment, with some significant implications for future strategies to tackle inequality. A sample:

"In an age of growing inequality and socioeconomic disparities in health, achievement, and wellbeing, understanding the neural embedding of SES has social as well as scientific relevance. Poverty and social deprivation are associated with widespread regional reductions of GMV, which the present results confirm with unprecedented certainty and anatomical specificity. A novel implication of our findings is that this association can be explained in part, but only in part, by genetic predisposition to different degrees across the brain...

....For policy purposes, genetic influences should not be taken as a sign of intractability (36, 39). Rather, our findings imply that biological and social factors both contribute to neural disparities and that policy interventions may influence and interact with biological factors. While it would be premature to base specific policies on our results, future research in this direction could provide insights that can be translated into targeted interventions [see (40) for an in-depth discussion]. For example, further insights into whether cognitive stimulation during early life or anti-poverty policies (13, 41, 42) reduce neural disparities would be valuable."

Cheers,

Colin