Brain Development and Poverty in Early Life Psychologist Amanda Guyer on Poverty
In this video, developmental psychologist Amanda Guyer describes
the impact growing up in poverty can have on brain function and
how the stress of life in poverty affects people’s lives.
Understanding what parts of the brain are most sensitive to early
life experience in poverty, she says, may suggest ways to create
interventions to help people cope with the stress of their
everyday lives.
Guyer is a UC Davis Professor of Human Development and Family
Studies and a Faculty Affiliate of the Center for Poverty
Research. She is also an affiliate of the Center for Mind and
Brain. She was a 2014-2015 Chancellor’s Fellow.
Dr. Guyer’s research focuses on the behavioral and neural
mechanisms that may underlie the way that adolescents think and
feel. One overarching question throughout her research is how
does attentional focus modulate the brain circuitry involved in
emotional responding?
In this podcast, visiting scholar Stephanie Jones and Amanda
Guyer, a UC Davis Associate Professor of Human Development and
Family Studies, discuss the long-term impacts of poverty and
violence on social and emotional development in a conversation
that ranges from classroom interventions to cross-disciplinary
research into non-cognitive skills.
