[Photo by Bryan Jones]

The human brain begins as a neural tube that develops five weeks after conception. Years later, it is fully formed. On Tuesday, experts in neuroscience, genetics and social work met in Manhattan to talk about what can happen to it along the way, and what emerging research tells us about how children who seem broken can be made whole.

Officially, the meeting was called Poverty, the Brain and Mental Health. It could have been called This Is Your Brain on Poverty. Or: Don’t Give Up on Little Kids.

For some children, living in poverty is like playing football without a helmet; everyday life causes social concussions. The developing brain gets hammered not by linebackers, but by the stresses often present in homes where people are poor. Brute force is not required to cause physical changes in the brain, emerging science shows.

“There’s no doubt that the field of public health has been slow to embrace much of this research and insight,” Dr. Mary T. Bassett, New York City’s health commissioner, said. “A lot more work has been committed to helping infants survive early death. Less has been done to truly help them thrive.”

How does stress reshape the brain?

It sets off the release of a hormone called cortisol, essential to the “fight or flight” response, and critical to a child’s healthy development, Dr. Bassett said.

[For more of this story, written by Jim Dwyer, go to http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05...o-about-it.html?_r=0]