de Jesus Alethea V, Ahmadi Hedyeh, Hackman Daniel A, Cardenas-Iniguez Carlos, Schachner Jared, Schwartz Joel, Gauderman W James, Chen Jiu-Chiuan, Herting Megan M
Department of Population and Public Health Sciences, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90033, USA.
USC Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.
Environ Int. 2025 Jul;201:109561. doi: 10.1016/j.envint.2025.109561. Epub 2025 May 29.
The adolescent brain is vulnerable to ambient air pollution. Importantly, community-level factors - such as neighborhood disadvantage - that co-occur with air pollution may further enhance this vulnerability and impact brain development. The current study investigated if neighborhood disadvantage moderates the association between residential fine particulate matter (PM) pollution and adolescent brain development, including longitudinal changes in cortical thickness, surface area, and subcortical/white matter volume from ages 9-13 years (n = 8321 participants from the ABCD Study®; 12,634 observations). We found that, in more disadvantaged neighborhoods, higher PM levels were associated with greater age-related cortical thinning in temporal areas and in most regions of the occipital lobe. Furthermore, independent of neighborhood disadvantage, higher PM exposure was associated with larger age-related surface area decreases in parietal, occipital, and temporal regions, but smaller age-related increases in right cerebral white matter volume and frontal and temporal region surface area. Similarly, higher PM exposure was independently associated with greater age-related cortical thinning in the frontal regions, cingulate, and insula, but smaller age-related cortical thickening in temporal regions. Findings have policy implications for air quality improvements alongside investment in disadvantaged neighborhoods to bolster adolescent brain development.
青少年的大脑易受环境空气污染的影响。重要的是，与空气污染同时存在的社区层面因素，如邻里劣势，可能会进一步加剧这种易感性，并影响大脑发育。本研究调查了邻里劣势是否会调节住宅细颗粒物（PM）污染与青少年大脑发育之间的关联，包括9至13岁期间皮质厚度、表面积以及皮质下/白质体积的纵向变化（来自ABCD研究®的8321名参与者；12634次观察）。我们发现，在处境更不利的社区中，较高的PM水平与颞叶区域以及枕叶大多数区域与年龄相关的更大程度皮质变薄有关。此外，与邻里劣势无关，较高的PM暴露与顶叶、枕叶和颞叶区域与年龄相关的更大表面积减少有关，但与右侧脑白质体积以及额叶和颞叶区域表面积与年龄相关的较小增加有关。同样，较高的PM暴露与额叶区域、扣带回和脑岛与年龄相关的更大程度皮质变薄独立相关，但与颞叶区域与年龄相关的较小皮质增厚有关。研究结果对改善空气质量以及投资处境不利的社区以促进青少年大脑发育具有政策意义。
