A new study indicates children raised in poorer households have brains with less surface area, meaning they could be at a disadvantage in developing important academic skills, NBC News reported. The study, which scanned the brains of 1,099 children and teens in nine major cities, showed that poorer kids' brains have less surface area than the brains of well-to-do kids. Higher brain surface area — a more wrinkled brain, so to speak — is linked with higher intelligence, because brain cells linked with intelligence are concentrated on the surface of the brain. "We know that families from disadvantaged backgrounds tend to experience more stress," Dr. Kimberly Noble, who helped lead the study, told NBC News. Elizabeth Sowell, who also worked on the study published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, said that "family income is linked to factors such as nutrition, health care, schools, play areas and, sometimes, air quality." It's not clear that the differences are unchangeable, the researchers said.
