Growing up around threat may reshape one particular brain network
Young people who faced more threat, like violence at home, had a larger brain network that links thinking to body movement. Scans of 4,525 people aged 9 to 18 showed the network grew as threat rose.
Why it matters
A hard childhood is known to change the growing brain, but many people expected the effect to be spread thinly across the whole brain. Here the change gathered in one place: the network that connects planning and thinking to the body. Young people with a larger version of this network also did a little worse on tests of thinking, which could matter for school. But this is a link, not proof of cause. The researchers watched children's lives rather than changing anything, so other differences between these children could also explain the pattern.
Who's behind it: C. Antonacci and colleagues, Stanford University and collaborating research centres.
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