HOUSTON: Long-term poverty in young adulthood and midlife affects cognitive function by age 50, according to researchers, earlier than previously thought.
Researchers at the University of California San Francisco say their new study, suggests poverty has a greater, faster influence on brain function than previous research has shown.
“Our findings reveal a clear graded relationship such that cognitive performance, and processing speed in particular, was worse with cumulative exposure to economic adversity,” Dr. Kristine Yaffe, who is also chief of neuropsychiatry at the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center and senior author of the study, said.