Poverty and the Brain

November 3 2015

This show is a recap of the lecture Poverty and the Brain offered by the Ludmer Centre for Neuroinformatics and Mental Health.

1 in 7 (or about 4.8 million) people in Canada live in Poverty. And Poverty, by itself, costs Canada as a whole between 72 billion and 84 billion dollars annually. Poverty is highly socially constructed. In Canada, 21% of single mothers live in poverty while raising their children, and people living with disability is twice as likely to live below the poverty line.

Poverty and the Brain, by the keynote speaker Dr. Michael Meaney, talks about how exactly is poverty correlated and an important factor that leads to poorer health outcomes from a biological perspective. Specifically, he outlines studies that show poverty is a key condition that can cause physiological adaptations in the brain. Dr. Meaney is the co-director and a primary investigator at the Ludmer Centre, a researcher at the Douglas Mental Health University Institute, and a James McGill Professor of psychiatry, neurology and neurosurgery.

Produced by Alice Shen.

Listen to the full show here.