ISGlobal (Barcelona Institute for Global Health), Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
Pompeu Fabra University, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain.
Environ Health Perspect. 2019 May;127(5):57002. doi: 10.1289/EHP3169.
Although previous studies have reported negative associations between exposure to air pollution and cognition, studies of the effects of prenatal and postnatal exposures in early childhood have been limited.
We sought to assess the role exposure to fine particulate matter ([Formula: see text]) during different prenatal and postnatal windows may play in children's cognitive development at school age.
Within the Brain Development and Air Pollution Ultrafine Particles in School Children (BREATHE) Project, we estimated residential [Formula: see text] exposures by land use regression for the prenatal period and first seven postnatal years of 2,221 children from Barcelona, Spain. The participants ([Formula: see text]) completed computerized tests assessing working memory, attentiveness, and conflict network during four visits in 2012–2013. We used linear mixed effects and distributed lag models to assess the period of exposure to [Formula: see text] in association with cognitive development.
Inverse associations were identified between [Formula: see text] exposure during the fifth and sixth postnatal years and working memory, with boys showing much higher vulnerability. Regarding attention functions, exposure to higher [Formula: see text] levels during the prenatal period and from the fourth postnatal year were associated with a reduction in conflict network performance, though we found no association with attentiveness. The overall estimated cumulative effect of a [Formula: see text] increase in [Formula: see text] resulted in a reduction in the working memory [Formula: see text] score of [Formula: see text] [95% confidence interval (CI): [Formula: see text], [Formula: see text]] points and an increase in the conflict attentional network of 11.31 (95% CI: 6.05, 16.57) milliseconds, indicating a poorer performance.
Early life exposure to [Formula: see text] was associated with a reduction in fundamental cognitive abilities, including working memory and conflict attentional network. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP3169.
尽管先前的研究报告表明，暴露于空气污染与认知能力下降之间存在负相关关系，但针对产前和产后早期暴露对儿童认知能力影响的研究还很有限。
我们旨在评估儿童在学龄期时，暴露于细颗粒物（PM2.5）于不同产前和产后时期可能对其认知发展产生的影响。
在“大脑发育和儿童空气污染超细粒子研究（BREATHE）”项目中，我们利用土地使用回归法，对 2221 名来自西班牙巴塞罗那的儿童的产前和出生后 7 年内的 PM2.5 暴露情况进行了估计。这些参与者在 2012-2013 年期间进行了四次访问，完成了评估工作记忆、注意力和冲突网络的计算机测试。我们使用线性混合效应和分布式滞后模型来评估 PM2.5 暴露与认知发展之间的关联。
我们发现，在第六个和第七个出生年后，PM2.5 暴露与工作记忆呈负相关，男孩表现出更高的脆弱性。在注意力功能方面，我们发现，在产前和第四个出生年后，更高的 PM2.5 水平与冲突网络性能的下降有关，而与注意力无关。PM2.5 增加 1[Formula: see text]会导致工作记忆[Formula: see text]评分降低[Formula: see text]分（95%置信区间：[Formula: see text]，[Formula: see text]），并导致注意力冲突网络增加 11.31（95%置信区间：6.05，16.57）毫秒，表明表现更差，这表明整体估计的 PM2.5 累积效应与工作记忆和冲突注意力网络等基本认知能力的下降有关。
生命早期暴露于 PM2.5 与基本认知能力的下降有关，包括工作记忆和冲突注意力网络。https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP3169.
