Can economic hardship shape the way our brain works? For 25 years, Kristine Yaffe, a psychiatrist at the University of California, San Francisco followed more than three thousand adults with different income levels and found that poverty does affect cognitive function. She says this is due to a concept called ‘cognitive reserve’.

"And what that means is the more you can grow your brain, the more you have education -- the more it is stimulated, the more complex your occupation is, the more complex your lifestyle activities are - your leisure activities."

Yaffe says with that in mind, researchers can prevent cognitive diseases later in life.

"Using your brain in this way, we think may have a beneficial effect in terms of protecting against getting dementia and other kinds of processes that affect your memory and thinking."