Healing the Poverty-Scarred Brain

Posted by Sheila Redick on January 27, 2006

Writing for SEED, Jonah Lehrer reports on Princeton professor Elizabeth Gould's research on the brain. Eight years after Gould proved that the primate brain is always creating new neurons, she has now demonstrated that the structure of our brain is incredibly influenced by our surroundings.

"Put a primate under stressful conditions, and its brain begins to starve. It stops creating new cells. The cells it already has retreat inwards. The mind is disfigured," Lehrer reports.

"If boring environments, stressful noises and the primate's particular slot in the dominance hierarchy all shape the architecture of the brain -- and Gould's team has shown that they do -- then the playing field isn't level," Lehrer continues. "Poverty and stress aren't just an idea: they are an anatomy. Some brains never have a chance."

"Poverty is stress," according to Gould. In her view, poverty is not a character issue. The symptoms of poverty actually warp the brain.

But Gould and her team also believe there are antidotes to those things that inhibit brain development. "The scars of stress can literally be healed by learning new things" because the mind, like muscle, expands with exercise.

Lehrer has written an important article for urban leaders. Find it in the February/March issue of SEED.

One of the great challenges for urban leaders is to cultivate a mass culture of curiosity to build brainpower. Charles Leadbeater, writer and thinker associated with the Demos think tank in the U.K., has written compellingly on this topic. What are the methods for cultivating mass curiosity? It is a question worthy of serious consideration, debate and testing.