A TEAM of University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers has shown that chronic stress from poverty, neglect and physical abuse in early life may shrink the parts of a child's developing brain responsible for memory, learning and processing emotion.

WHILE early life stress has already been linked to depression, anxiety, heart disease, cancer and a lack of educational and employment success, researchers have long sought to understand what part of the brain is affected to help guide interventions.

Originally published as Study pinpoints kids' brain stresses