Study links brain anatomy, academic achievement, and family income

http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2015/link-brain-to-anatomy-academic-achievement-family-income-0417

by kercker • 11 years ago

59 10 11 years ago

newsoffice.mit.edu

felixbraun• 11 years ago

Related: Your DNA may carry a ‘memory’ of your living conditions in childhood.

http://scienceblog.com/48584/your-dna-may-carry-a-‘memory’-o...

d0mdo0ss• 11 years ago

from another related article[1], "A working hypothesis is that socio-economic circumstances leave their mark on the epigenome leading to stable changes in expression of genes critical for human health, such as those involved in cardiovascular, immune, stress response and behavioural pathologies"

[1] Associations with early-life socio-economic position in adult DNA methylation. Int J Epidemiol. 2012 Feb; 41(1): 62–74.

formulaT• 11 years ago

I didn't see any reason why these differences might not be genetic: genes cause changes in the brain which cause changes in academic achievement which cause socio-economic status.

It would be interesting to see studies that isolated the effects of genes and environment.

s0uthPaw882• 11 years ago

There are a number of natural experiments that researchers have used to examine this question:

[1]A study looking at the performance of Korean-American adopted children relative to their siblings: http://www.nber.org/papers/w10894

[2]The impact of various welfare programs on student achievement: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3208322/

davorak• 11 years ago

It would be interesting to see studies that isolated the effects of genes and environment.

The colorado adoption project can be good source of that type of information, in my limit understanding, example: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7755514

rubyfan• 11 years ago

It's not immediately clear to me why those carrying out the study seem to interpret their results as justification for policy making and intervention. Serious question, is it not possible that we observe a cause and effect here? Ie. higher mental capacity leads to doing better in life?

anon4this12• 11 years ago

because in the brainwashed world of academia (and especially psychology) this is the more politically correct explanation, which is more likely to get published, get funding grants, get admiration from departmental peers, get media attention, avoid embarrassment for your self/your family/your department/your institution.

James Watson won a nobel prize for elucidating the structure of DNA and was still only 2 non-PC comments away from becoming a pariah.

chfjdjcbcbf• 11 years ago

>>/pol/

s0uthPaw882• 11 years ago

Or maybe it is because there are many researchers who have actually studied the data and found that environmental factors play a large role. A summary of some of the research in this area:

http://futureofchildren.org/publications/journals/article/in...

Study links brain anatomy, academic achievement, and family income

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