How Parental Absence Alters Children’s Brain Development
By Jeremy Dean
Some Chinese children are left with relatives while their parents travel for work.
Children living without their parents for a period may suffer delayed brain development, a new study finds.
The Chinese research looked at children who were left behind with relatives while their parents travelled for work.
Left-behind children had more gray matter in areas of the brain related to memory and the emotions.
The researchers think this may be a result of insufficient pruning of synapses, the connections between neurons.
Synaptic pruning is thought to be a vital developmental stage in adolescence.
Children who had higher gray matter volume in these areas tended to have lower IQs, the researchers found.
Mr Xiao said:
“Our study provides the first empirical evidence showing that the lack of direct parental care alters the trajectory of brain development in left-behind children.
Public health efforts are needed to provide additional intellectual and emotional support to children left behind by parents.”
No comments:
Post a Comment