How does marginalization change someone's brain chemistry?
It’s always been interesting to me how mental health ties into the physical health of the brain.
I feel as though the public often thinks of the traumatic things as impacting our mental health, but fails to consider how the actual chemistry of the brain is changed.
For instance, one study from Yale and Columbia found that mothers encountering discrimination during their pregnancy had children with weaker connectivity between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex.
The amygdala handles emotions, and the prefrontal cortex controls things such as speech, memory, attention span, decision making, and other high-order cognitive abilities. These areas of the brain are incredibly important for normal functioning. The impacts of discrimination being passed down to the child has worrying implications.
Similarly, a study from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that there was a link between poverty and worse structures of white matter tracts in the brain. White matter connects areas of the brains so that it can transmit information to gray matter, which is made of unmyelinated nerve cells. White matter helps with learning new skills and information.
The study also acknowledged that other factors could play into this correlation: children who grow up in poverty also have a higher risk of obesity. Since nutritional food can be more expensive, many have to turn to foods with less beneficial ingredients. This could contribute to the differences in brain chemistry.
In addition, the article also notes that those in poverty score lower on cognitive function tests, which they claim may be because of “limited access to enriching […] cognitive stimulation”. In other words, people in poverty often lack resources to use to challenge the brain.
This is one of the reasons I personally get irritated when someone dismisses these constant struggles as ‘not that bad’- facing discrimination and poverty every day can already be difficult to work through mentally, but they can also change someone on a chemical level. I believe we, as a society, need do more to support these groups.
For kids in disadvantaged neighborhoods, it may be helpful to provide more stimulating activities and materials to schools and stores for free or for very little to ensure that they have the same resources that those who are more affluent have. With the mothers facing discrimination, even if we cannot stop discrimination entirely, people can still make more of an effort to understand and show empathy for how tremendously discrimination in one’s day to day life can impact someone.
Society understanding how serious poor mental health can be and creating a culture of empathy and kindness is essential for us to progress as people.
Links I Reference:
Poverty negatively impacts structural wiring in children’s brains, study indicates
Discrimination during pregnancy can affect infants’ brain circuitry
What Is White Matter In The Brain
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