Air pollution and cortical myelin T1w/T2w ratio estimates in school-age children from the ABCD and NeuroSmog studies.
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 (NO<sub>2</sub>) 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 NO<sub>2</sub> and PM were not significantly associated with cortical T1w/T2w except for one association of PM<sub>10</sub> 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.
Authors
- Megan M. Herting (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0840-4582)
- Krzysztof Skotak (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2689-1182)
- Marcin Szwed (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2153-7793)
- Hedyeh Ahmadi (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8076-5526)
- Katarzyna Sitnik‐Warchulska (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8262-8034)
- James Grellier (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7458-7479)
- Anna Degórska (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6638-5810)
- Małgorzata Lipowska (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7422-159X)
- Yarema Mysak (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7904-9530)
- Clemens Baumbach (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0005-1995-5995)
- Iana Markevych (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5214-0748)
- Bartosz Kossowski (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4240-3452)
- Katarzyna Kaczmarek‐Majer (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0422-9366)
- Emilia Rutkowska
- Alethea V. de Jesus
Institutions
- University of Southern California (US)
- Jagiellonian University (PL)
- Children's Hospital of Los Angeles (US)
- Instytut Biologii Doświadczalnej im. Marcelego Nenckiego (PL)
- University of Exeter (GB)
- Medical University Plovdiv (BG)
- University of Gdańsk (PL)
- Institute of Environmental Protection (PL)
- Institute of Psychology (PL)
- Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (DE)
- Polish Academy of Sciences (PL)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience
- Published
- 2025-02-28
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2025.101538
- Citations
- 4
- Primary Topic
- Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 5.72
Funders
- European Commission
- Fundacja na rzecz Nauki Polskiej
- National Institutes of Health
- European Regional Development Fund
- National Institute of Mental Health
- National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences