We have known for a long time that poverty, however defined, is associated with poorer developmental and educational outcomes. It has been assumed that much of this is due to environmental and societal factors, but now we have hard evidence that poverty has a measurable adverse effect on organic brain development. Researchers from six US centres studied 390 children and adolescents aged 4 to 22 years between 2001 and 2007 (Hair N et al. JAMA Pediatrics 2015. …