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Work by Martha Farah of the University of Pennsylvania, Tom Boyce of UCSF, and others demonstrates something outrageous: By age five, the lower a child's socioeconomic status, on the average, the {a} higher the basal glucocorticoid levels and/or the more reactive the glucocorticoid stress response, {b} the thinner the frontal cortex and the lower its metabolism, and {c} the poorer the frontal function concerning working memory, emotion regulation, impulse control, and executive decision making; moreover, to achieve equivalent frontal regulation, lower-SES kids must activate more frontal cortex than do higher-SES kids. In addition, childhood poverty impairs maturation of the corpus callosum, a bundle of axonal fibers connecting the two hemispheres and integrating their function. This is so wrong-foolishly pick a poor family to be born into, and by kindergarten, the odds of your succeeding at life's marshmallow tests are already stacked against you.34

( Robert M. Sapolsky )
[ Behave: The Biology of Humans ]
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