University of California, Berkeley, researchers have shown for the first time that the brains of low-income children function differently from the brains of high-income kids. In short, they don't perform as well.

In a study recently published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, scientists said that normal 9- and 10-year-olds, differing only in socioeconomic status, have detectable differences in the response of their prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain that is critical for problem solving and creativity.

Brain function was measured by means of an electroencephalograph, through a cap fitted with electrodes to measure electrical activity in the brain. Similar devices are used to assess epilepsy, sleep disorders and brain tumors.

Kishiyama, Knight, Boyce and their colleagues selected 26 children ages 9 and 10 from a group of children in the WINKS study.

Half were from families with low incomes and half from families with high incomes.

For each child, the researchers measured brain activity while he or she was engaged in a simple task: watching a sequence of triangles projected on a screen.

The subjects were instructed to click a button when a slightly skewed triangle flashed on the screen.

The researchers were interested in the brain's very early response - within as little as 200 milliseconds, or a fifth of a second - after a novel picture was flashed on the screen, such as a photo of a puppy or of Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

"An EEG allows us to measure very fast brain responses with millisecond accuracy," Kishiyama said.

The researchers discovered a dramatic difference in the response of the prefrontal cortex not only when an unexpected image flashed on the screen, but also when children were merely watching the upright triangles waiting for a skewed triangle to appear.

Originally posted by eradown
reply to post by baseball101

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Poor American kids eat a different diet than the rich American kids eat. Poor kids eat more GMO foods. They also eat melamine laden baby foods.The europeans have proven that rats fed a diet of GMO foods have smaller brains. The rich kids eat expensive organic foods. The ptb want poor kids to be unhealthy and dumb. Because the poor kids were not fed properly, it is impossible to tell how smart they should have been.



[edit on 2-12-2008 by eradown]