Social deprivation has a measurable effect on brain growth

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-07/chb-sdh072012.php

Public release date: 23-Jul-2012
Contact: Meghan Weber
Children's Hospital Boston
Social deprivation has a measurable effect on brain growth
MRI shows decreased gray and white matter among children in institutional care -- but white matter can 'catch up' if circumstances improve

(Boston, Mass.)—Severe psychological and physical neglect produces measurable changes in children's brains, finds a study led by Boston Children's Hospital. But the study also suggests that positive interventions can partially reverse these changes.

Researchers led by Margaret Sheridan, PhD, and Charles Nelson, PhD, of the Labs of Cognitive Neuroscience at Boston Children's Hospital, analyzed brain MRI scans from Romanian children in the ongoing Bucharest Early Intervention Project (BEIP), which has transferred some children reared in orphanages into quality foster care homes.

Their findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Early Edition, online the week of July 23), add to earlier studies by Nelson and colleagues showing cognitive impairment in institutionalized children, but also showing improvements when children are placed in good foster homes.

"Increasingly we are finding evidence that exposure to childhood adversity has a negative effect on brain development," says Sheridan. "The implications are wide ranging, not just for institutionalized children but also for children exposed to abuse, abandonment, violence during war, extreme poverty and other adversities."