MNLEND Webinar Archived on Neurobiology of Poverty

November 3, 2016

Dr. Megan Gunnar, Ph.D., University of Minnesota, is a leading researcher on the impact poverty has on early brain development. Her live presentation at the MNLEND Forum in Spring 2016 is now available for viewing as a pre-recorded webinar [with closed captioning]. To view: https://lend.umn.edu/forums/poverty.asp Her talk is titled: "Poverty, Allostatic Load and the Stress Neuraxis: A Mechanism or a Bridge Too Far?"

In her talk, Professor Gunnar reviews theories that predict how poverty and the stressors associated with it will impact the activity of stress-mediating systems and that these systems can help explain how poverty "gets under the skin" to influence life course trajectories of health and disease. She then reviews the evidence available to date for these theories and points to the need for a "next generation" of stress research to better understand the role of poverty in human development.