A new study reveals that children of wealthier, better-educated parents have bigger brains and more cognitive skills than their lower-income peers, according to the journal Nature Neuroscience.

After analyzing 1,099 typically developing individuals between 3 and 20 years of age, the study finds, “Among children from lower income families, small differences in income were associated with relatively large differences in surface area, whereas, among children from higher income families, similar income increments were associated with smaller differences in surface area.”

The researchers from Columbia, Yale and several other schools of medicine conclude, “distinctions were most profound in regions of the brain supporting language and reading, executive functions like memory and decision-making, and spatial skills.”

Their solutions include better school lunches, motivated teaching and community programs to encourage and engage children.

“Our data suggest that wider access to resources likely afforded by the more affluent may lead to differences in a child’s brain structure,” says researcher Dr. Elizabeth Sowell, of the Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

“Access to higher-quality childcare, more cognitively stimulating materials in the home and opportunities for learning outside the home likely account for some of these effects.”

She believes growing up in a household that is more free of the stress of struggling to make ends meet is also likely to foster brain development.

According to Columbia University’s Dr. Kimberley Noble, a child’s situation isn’t necessarily permanent.

“This is the critical point,” she says. “The brain is the product of both genetics and experience and experience is particularly powerful in molding brain development in childhood.

“This suggests that interventions to improve socioeconomic circumstance, family life and/or educational opportunity can make a vast difference.”