Brain Syndemics: Cognitive Deficit, Pathways of Interaction, and the Biology of Inequality

Author Info

Merrill Singer

Corresponding Author

Merrill Singer
Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA

A B S T R A C T

Children born into and raised in disadvantaged families tend to experience poorer health and more developmental delays, lower achievement, and a greater number of behavioural and emotional problems than children from wealthier homes. There is growing evidence that poverty and social inequality leave their imprint on brain structure as well. The brain exhibits considerable plasticity, one expression of which is shaped by the biology of inequality. A specific consequence is cognitive deficit found among children raised in poverty and subject to social discrimination. This paper argues that several pathways impacted by poverty, including chronic stress, malnutrition, exposure to heightened levels of air pollution, and other toxin exposures, syndemically link social inequality to underlying neural mechanisms and to suboptimal brain development and structure. These deficits need not be permanent and are reversible through urgently needed structural, socio-economic intervention.

Article Info

Article Type

Review Article

Publication history

Received: Tue 01, Jun 2021
Accepted: Wed 16, Jun 2021
Published: Mon 28, Jun 2021

Copyright

© 2023 Merrill Singer. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Hosting by Science Repository.
DOI: 10.31487/j.NNB.2021.02.03