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Poverty Has A Significant Effect On The Brain Essay

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Growing up in poverty has a significant effect on the brain. While poverty affects many aspects of the brain processing, spending patterns are impacted which affects quality of life. Occasionally, those in poverty make it out. Despite gaining a higher socioeconomic class, quality of life can still be influenced by the impact of poverty. This is because those who grew up in poverty continue their impulsive spending habits when they move into the middle-class because poverty leaves an enduring impression on the human brain.

Poverty has an immense effect on how the human brain develops. In Erika Hayasaki’s essay “This Is Your Brain on ‘Poor’”, she argues that the environment in which children and teens in poverty grow up in causes the brain to stay in a constant state of fight-or -flight due to the amount of crime and violence they’re exposed to. She discusses how when in fight-or-flight there is an excess of stress hormones pumped through the body so that the person can react in an instant. When exposed to violent crime daily she explains, “Your stress hormones would be constantly amped up, and after a while your body wouldn’t be able to turn down the volume. Your brain would get stuck in a constant state of flight-or- fight—the kind of chronic stress that impedes the development of stem cells, brain connections and neurons. Immordino-Yang’s work has found that those in this type of environment often do not fully develop the ability to plan effectively, set

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