This article presents the findings of a 12-year study, conducted by Harvard University and Boston Children’s Hospital in the USA, that examined the effects of institutionalization on Romanian children’s brain development. According to the study, the children’s brain development was significantly stunted, and their brains damaged, as a result of their institutionalization and the poor treatment they received in Romanian orphanages in Bucharest. The study adds to a growing amount of evidence that severe neglect in early childhood has a detrimental effect on brain development, suggesting important public health implications related to early intervention and prevention. Furthermore, the study found that those children who had been placed into loving foster homes were able to restore brain functioning, suggesting that interventions such as foster care placement may remediate some of the brain damage and other negative effects of institutionalization.
