Fine particulate matter exposure during childhood relates to hemispheric-specific differences in cortical thickness
Year: 2020
Type: conference-abstract
Abstract: Background: Hemispheric and regional patterns are an essential feature of child and adolescent neurodevelopment. Emerging findings have increased concern that exposure to fine particulate matter air pollution (aerodynamic diameter ≤2.5 μm; PM2.5) may be neurotoxic, even at low-levels.Methods: In the current cross-sectional study, we examined the associations between outdoor PM2.5 exposure and brain thickness in 9- and 10- year-old children from the landmark Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study (N=10,393). FreeSurfer was used to quantify brain structure using high-resolution structural T1-weighted brain scans and yearly PM2.5 exposure estimates were assigned to the primary residential address at the study inception using an ensemble-based model.Results: Individual PM2.5 exposure levels were found to be largely below the regulatory 12 μg/m3 standard set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and only one site had median exposure levels above the World Health Organization’s standard of 10 μg/m3. After multiple comparison correction and adjusting for familial relationships, study site location, as well as age, sex, socioeconomic status, and race/ethnicity, annual residential PM2.5 exposure was associated with widespread hemispheric-specific differences in cortical thickness. Specifically, negative associations were seen between exposure and thickness in the left frontal lobes (superior frontal, lateral orbital, cingulate) and right inferior temporal and parahippocampal gyrus, whereas positive associations were seen in the right frontal lobes (lateral orbital, paracentral, and cingulate gyrus) and the left middle temporal gyrus.Conclusions: Structural brain differences in today’s developing youth may be attributable to low-levels of ambient fine particulate matter. The observed hemispheric-specific differences in cortical volume associated with exposure suggest that PM2.5 neurotoxicity may alter the timing of a synaptic pruning, by either delaying or accelerating this process. A possible biological mechanism of PM2.5 on the pruning process may be through its action on microglia cells which engulf dendritic spines during pruning.
Source: ISEE Conference Abstracts
Authors: M. M. Herting, D. Cserbik, R. McConnell, K. Berhane, E. Sowell, J. Schwartz, D. A. Hackman, C. Fan, J. Chen
Language: English
Subfield: Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W3166626527