Clear from decades of research is the strong link between poverty and lower academic achievement. While this association has been well-studied and well-replicated, much is still unknown about how poverty may create risk for lower scores on standardized tests of academic achievement, poorer grades in school, and lower educational attainment. Recently, the tools of cognitive neuroscience have been employed to further the mechanistic understanding between poverty and lower academic achievement. Here, I will describe a number of studies focused on two stress-sensitive brain regions, namely the frontal lobe and the hippocampus. Using cross-sectional and longitudinal study designs, I have found smaller volumes in these regions in children and adolescents from lower socioeconomic status households. These neural differences also connect to variations in academic achievement. I will detail this work and also discuss future research directions and how to integrate “neurally inspired” models of self-regulation into understanding the linkage between poverty and lower academic achievement.

Sponsored by the Brain Institute, Learning Research and Development Center, and the Department of Psychology