How poverty affects the brain
The video tells the story of Malala Yousafzai, the Nobel Peace Prize winner from Pakistan who at 15 survived being shot in the head by the Taliban while riding a bus in 2012. “I want to get my education, and I want to become a doctor,” she says, adding that the Taliban throw acid on some people’s faces and kill others, but “they cannot stop me.”A 15-year-old boy watching the clip on a laptop inside the University of Southern California’s Brain and Creativity Institute seems unmoved by Yousafzai’s story—his face is blank, his shoulders slumped. An interviewer asks how it makes him feel. He shrugs: “I don’t know.” Nothing. The researcher moves on, asking what kind of person he hopes to be when he grows up. “Nice,” he says. “Do you want to go to college?” “Yeah.” “Do you have plans after college?” “I haven’t thought about it.” “What kind of job do you want?” “I haven’t thought about it.”
