Money equals marks: report

RICHER pupils achieve higher academic grades because their brains are different, according to research.

Past research has shown pupils from low-income backgrounds fare worse than those from wealthier families.

Brain scans have now offered another dimension to this so-called “achievement gap” by showing richer pupils have thicker brain cortex in areas associated with visual perception and knowledge accumulation. There was a link between the brain anatomy and performance on standardised tests.

John Gabrieli, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said: “Just as you would expect, there’s a real cost to not living in a supportive environment.

“We can see it not only in test scores, in educational attainment, but within the brains of these children.

“To me, it’s a call to action. You want to boost the opportunities for those for whom it doesn’t come easily in their environment.”

The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, involved 58 pupils aged 12 or 13, of whom 23 came from poorer backgrounds and qualified for free school lunches. Their scores in educational tests were compared with scans of the cortex, the wrinkled outer layer of the brain key to functions like thought, language, sensory perception, motor command.

Using magnetic resonance imaging, scientists discovered differences in the thickness of the cortex in the temporal and occipital lobes, whose primary roles are in vision and storing knowledge. Those differences correlated to differences in both test scores and family income.

Previous studies have shown brain anatomy differences associated with income, but did not link those differences to academic achievement.

In most other brain anatomy measures, the researchers found no significant differences. The amount of white matter – the axon bundles that connect different parts of the brain – did not differ. Nor did the overall surface area of the cortex.

The structural differences uncovered may not be permanent as there is “strong evidence that brains are highly plastic”, the study found.

Researchers now hope to study what types of educational programmes help close the achievement gap and probe if these interventions influence brain anatomy. – The Telegraph