VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Aug. 29 (UPI) -- People preoccupied with making ends meet had a drop in brain function similar to a 13-point dip in IQ or the loss of a night's sleep, researchers in Canada say.

The study, published in the journal Science, suggested a person's thinking and reasoning ability could be diminished by the exhausting effort of tasks like scrounging to pay bills and surviving from day-to-day. As a result, less "mental bandwidth" remains for education, training, time-management and other steps that could help break out of the cycles of poverty, the study said.

Jiaying Zhao of the University of British Columbia, who conducted the study as a graduate student at Princeton University, said poverty consumes so much mental energy that those in poor circumstances have little remaining brainpower to concentrate on other areas of life.

As a result, those with few resources are more likely to make bad decisions that perpetuate their financial woes, Zhao said.