Air pollution and cortical myelin T1w/T2w ratio estimates in school-age children from the ABCD and NeuroSmog studies

Szwed, Marcin ; Jesus, Alethea V. de; Kossowski, Bartosz; Ahmadi, Hedyeh; Rutkowska, Emilia; Mysak, Yarema; Baumbach, Clemens ; Kaczmarek-Majer, Katarzyna; Degórska, Anna; Skotak, Krzysztof; Sitnik-Warchulska, Katarzyna; Lipowska, Małgorzata; Grellier, James; Markevych, Iana und Herting, Megan M. (2025): Air pollution and cortical myelin T1w/T2w ratio estimates in school-age children from the ABCD and NeuroSmog studies. In: Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, Bd. 73, 101538

Abstract

Air pollution affects human health and may disrupt brain maturation, including axon myelination, critical for efficient neural signaling. Here, we assess the impact of prenatal and current long-term particulate matter (PM) and nitrogen dioxide (NO2) exposure on cortical T1w/T2w ratios – a proxy for myelin content – in school-age children from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study (United States; N = 2021) and NeuroSmog study (Poland; N = 577), using Siemens scanners. Across both samples, we found that NO2 and PM were not significantly associated with cortical T1w/T2w except for one association of PM10 with lower T1w/T2w in the precuneus in NeuroSmog. Superficially, ABCD Study analyses including data from all scanner types (Siemens, GE, Philips; N = 3089) revealed a negative association between NO₂ exposure and T1w/T2w ratios. However, this finding could be an artifact of between-site sociodemographic differences and large scanner-type-related measurement differences. While significant associations between air pollution and cortical myelin were largely absent, these findings do not rule out the possibility that air pollution affects cortical myelin during other exposure periods/stages of neurodevelopment. Future research should examine these relationships across diverse populations and developmental periods using unified analysis methods to better understand the potential neurotoxic effects of air pollution.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Medizin > Institut und Poliklinik für Arbeits-, Sozial- und Umweltmedizin
• Themengebiete: 600 Technik, Medizin, angewandte Wissenschaften > 610 Medizin und Gesundheit
• ISSN: 18789293
• Sprache: Englisch