New research from the University of California, Berkeley shows that the brains of high-income children function differently compared to brains of low-income children.

This is your kid's brain

The study of normal 9- and 10-year-olds, who differed only in socioeconomic status, showed "detectable differences" in their prefrontal cortex. That is the part of the brain responsible for so-called executive functions, like personality, decision making and social behavior.

Half of the children were from families with low incomes--with mean household income of $27,192--and half from families with high incomes, with mean of $96,157.

For each child, the researchers measured brain activity while he or she was engaged in a simple task: watching a sequence of triangles projected on a screen. The subjects were instructed to click a button when a slightly skewed triangle flashed on the screen.