Childhood Poverty and Chronic Stress Affect a Person's Ability to Cope, Study Suggests

Poverty during childhood and chronic stress may affect people's ability to regulate their emotions, a study published in the Proceedings the National Academy of Sciences suggests.

The researchers found that individuals who had lower family incomes at age 9 showed greater activity in the amygdala as adults, as well as less activity in areas of the prefrontal cortex believed to regulate negative emotion.

The amygdala plays a critical role in negative, aversive emotions, such as fear. Amygdala and prefrontal cortex dysfunction is associated with mood disorders, such as depression, anxiety, impulsive aggression and substance abuse, the researchers note.

According to Dr. K. Luan Phan, a psychiatry professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine, while it is well understood that impoverished children face "a cascade of increasing risk factors," little research has been done on the effects of childhood poverty on brain function, and emotional regulation in particular.

"Our findings suggest that the stress-burden of growing up poor may be an underlying mechanism that accounts for the relationship between poverty as a child and how well your brain works as an adult," Phan said.

The researchers looked at the connection between childhood poverty at age 9, exposure to chronic stressors during childhood and neural activity at age 24 for 49 participants, roughly half of whom were from low-income families. They did this by gathering data on family income, stressor exposures, physiological stress responses and other information. They then compared this information to participants' brain activity as they were asked to suppress negative emotions while viewing pictures.

"This serves as a brain-behavioral index of a person's day-to-day ability to cope with stress and negative emotions as they encounter them," Phan explained.

The scientists found that the amount of chronic stress from childhood through adulthood -- whether from substandard housing, violence, family separation or other influences -- ultimately determined any relationship between childhood poverty and prefrontal brain function during emotional regulation.