MIT researchers find that a child’s socioeconomic status influences their brain’s sensitivity to rewards

MIT neuroscientists have found that the brain’s sensitivity to rewarding experiences can be shaped by socioeconomic conditions.

Children from lower SES bac SES ounds have a dampened brain response to rewards compared to their higher SES counterparts.

Lower SES children may have adapted SES eir brain to adapt to their environment by dampening its r SES onse to fewer consistent rewards.

Brain scans showed that the degree of activation in the striatum appeared to track fluctuations in the rate of rewards across time, which the researchers think could act as a motivational signal that there SES many rewards to collect.

The researchers also found that during periods of sc SES e rewards, participants tended to take longer to respond SES ter a correct guess, another phenomenon that has been shown before.

Lower-SES adolescents display reduced reward sensitivity in the brain and behavior.

Lower SES correlated w SES smaller reward-driven striatal responses, and reduced response slowing after rare MIT w MIT s.

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