Neuroscientist and pediatrician Kimberly Noble is leading the Baby’s First Years study: the first-ever randomized study of how family income changes children’s cognitive, emotional and brain development. She and a team of economists and policy experts are working together to find out: Can we help kids in poverty simply by giving families more money? “The brain is not destiny,” Noble says. “And if a child’s brain can be changed, then anything is possible.”

if we can show that reducing poverty changes how children’s brains develop and that leads to meaningful policy changes, then a young child born into poverty today may have a much better shot at a brighter future.