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Background: The amount of people affected by traffic-related air pollution and noise is continuously increasing, but limited research has been conducted on the association between these environmental exposures and functional brain connectivity in children. Objective: This exploratory study aimed to analyze the associations between the exposure to traffic-related air pollution and noise during pregnancy and childhood, and functional brain connectivity amongst a wide-swath of brain areas in preadolescents from 9 to 12 years of age. Methods: We used data of 2,197 children from the Generation R Study. Land use regression models were applied to estimate nitrogen oxides and particulate matter levels at participant's homes for several time periods: pregnancy, birth to 3 years, 3 to 6 years, and 6 years of age to the age at magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) assessment. Existing noise maps were used to estimate road traffic noise exposure at participant's homes for the same time periods. Resting-state functional MRI was obtained at 9-12 years of age. Pair-wise correlation coefficients of the blood-oxygen-level-dependent signals between 380 brain areas were calculated. Linear regressions were run and corrected for multiple testing. Results: Preadolescents exposed to higher levels of NO2, NOx, and PM2.5 absorbance, from birth to 3 years, and from 3 to 6 years of age showed higher correlation coefficients among several brain regions (e.g. from 0.16 to 0.19 higher correlation coefficient related to PM2.5 absorbance exposure, depending on the brain connection). Overall, most identified associations were between brain regions of the task positive and task negative networks, and were mainly inter-network (20 of 26). Slightly more than half of the connections were intra-hemispheric (14 of 26), predominantly in the right hemisphere. Road traffic noise was not associated with functional brain connectivity. Conclusions: This exploratory study found that exposure to traffic-related air pollution during the first years of life was related to higher functional brain connectivity predominantly in brain areas located in the task positive and task negative networks, in preadolescents from 9 to 12 years of age. These results could be an indicator of differential functional connectivity in children exposed to higher levels of air pollution. Air pollution exposure assessment was possible by funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Program (GA#211250, GA#243406). In addition, the study was made possible by financial support from the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (ZonMW Geestkracht Program 10.000.1003 & ZonMw TOP 40–00812-98–11021). The neuroimaging and neuroimaging infrastructure was funded via TOP project number 91,211,021 to Tonya White and and Sophia Foundation S18-20 awarded to Ryan Muetzel. Supercomputing computations for imaging processing were supported by the NWO Physical Sciences Division (Exacte Wetenschappen) and SURFsara (Cartesius compute cluster, https://www.surfsara.nl). Mònica Guxens received funding from the Spanish Institute of Health Carlos III (CPII18/00018, PI17/01340). Henning Tiemeier received funding from the Netherlands Organization for Health Research and Development (NWO-grant 016.VICI.170.200). Maria Foraster is a beneficiary of an AXA Research Fund grant. Mónica López-Vicente was funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 707404.

BACKGROUND: Little is known about developmental neurotoxicity of particulate matter composition. We aimed to investigate associations between exposure to elemental composition of outdoor PM2.5 at birth and cognitive and psychomotor functions in childhood. METHODS: We analyzed data from 4 European population-based birth cohorts in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Spain, with recruitment in 2000-2006. Elemental composition of PM2.5 measurements were performed in each region in 2008-2011 and land use regression models were used to predict concentrations at participants' residential addresses at birth. We selected 8 elements (copper, iron, potassium, nickel, sulfur, silicon, vanadium and zinc) and used principal component analysis to combine elements from the same sources. Cognitive (general, verbal, and non-verbal) and psychomotor (fine and gross) functions were assessed between 1 and 9years of age. Adjusted cohort-specific effect estimates were combined using random-effects meta-analysis. RESULTS: 7246 children were included in this analysis. Single element analysis resulted in negative association between estimated airborne iron and fine motor function (-1.25 points [95% CI -2.45 to -0.06] per 100ng/m3 increase of iron). Association between the motorized traffic component, derived from principal component analysis, and fine motor function was not significant (-0.29 points [95% CI -0.64 to 0.06] per unit increase). None of the elements were associated with gross motor function or cognitive function, although the latter estimates were predominantly negative. CONCLUSION: Our results suggest that iron, a highly prevalent element in motorized traffic pollution, may be a neurotoxic compound. This raises concern given the ubiquity of motorized traffic air pollution. This work was supported by the European Community's Seventh Framework Program (FP7/ 2007–2011), grant agreements 211250 and 243406. The European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program (no.: 633595, DynaHealth) and also received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement no. 733206 (LifeCycle). Also by the EU Commission (261357).

Background: The association between air pollution exposure and emotional and behavioural problems in children is unclear. We aimed to assess prenatal and postnatal exposure to several air pollutants and child's depressive and anxiety symptoms, and aggressive symptoms in children of 7-11 years. Methods: We analysed data of 13182 children from 8 European population-based birth cohorts. Concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), particulate matter (PM) with diameters of

Background. Several environmental exposure have been related to impaired child neurodevelopment. However, they mainly used neuropsychological or clinical instruments to evaluate child neurodevelopm...

Background: Exposure to air pollution during pregnancy may increase several behavior problems, including depression/anxiety or conduct/aggressive problems in children, but findings have been incons...

Little is known about developmental neurotoxicity of particulate matter composition. We aimed to investigate associations between exposure to elemental composition of outdoor PMWe analyzed data from 4 European population-based birth cohorts in the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Spain, with recruitment in 2000-2006. Elemental composition of PM7246 children were included in this analysis. Single element analysis resulted in negative association between estimated airborne iron and fine motor function (-1.25 points [95% CI -2.45 to -0.06] per 100ng/mOur results suggest that iron, a highly prevalent element in motorized traffic pollution, may be a neurotoxic compound. This raises concern given the ubiquity of motorized traffic air pollution.

Introduction: Studies addressing exposure to elemental composition of particulate matter in outdoor air and neuropsychological development are sparse. We aimed to investigate the association of pre...

Background: Increasing evidence indicates that air pollution exposure during pregnancy is related to impaired child neuropsychological development. However, it is unclear if brain structural altera...

The frequency and intensity of heat waves is projected to increase in many regions, particularly in hotspots of climate change such as the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East. The relationship be...

Background The frequency and intensity of heat waves is projected to increase in many parts of the world, particularly in regions such as the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East (EMME), where the warming trends are much larger than the global average. The relationship between air temperature and premature mortality is widely recognized, however, it is not well defined in the aforementioned region. The objective of this study is to assess the relationship between cardiovascular mortality risk and air temperature in Cyprus, an island located centrally in the EMME. Methods Daily cardiovascular mortality data and spatially aggregated daily mean, maximum, and minimum temperatures for the period 2004-2010 were analyzed using a case-crossover design combined with a distributed lag non-linear model. Results A relationship between high temperatures and cardiovascular mortality was observed for cerebrovascular diseases, ischaemic and other heart diseases; this relationship was exacerbated on days with high temperatures. The highest relative risk was observed on the day of the heat event and remained significantly elevated for another day. The results were consistent regardless whether the minimum, maximum, or mean temperatures were used, although the association seems to be more pronounced with the mean temperatures, which suggests that consecutive high day- and night-time temperatures are the most hazardous. Conclusions The identification of a positive relationship between high temperatures and cardiovascular mortality in Cyprus raises concerns. In view of the projected climate changes and strong increases in extreme heat events in the region, appropriate interventions need to be developed. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12940-015-0025-8) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Environment International 131, 104927 (2019)

Environment International 131, 104927 (2019)

Background: Studies investigating the relationship between exposure to air pollution and brain development using magnetic resonance images are emerging. However, most studies have focused only on prenatal exposures, and have included a limited selection of pollutants. Here, we aim to expand the current knowledge by studying pregnancy and childhood exposure to a wide selection of pollutants, and brain morphology in preadolescents. Methods: We used data from 3133 preadolescents from a birth cohort from Rotterdam, the Netherlands (enrollment: 2002–2006). Concentrations of nitrogen oxides, coarse, fine, and ultrafine particles, and composition of fine particles were estimated for participant's home addresses in pregnancy and childhood, using land use regression models. Structural brain images were obtained at age 9–12 years. We assessed the relationships of air pollution exposure, with brain volumes, and surface-based morphometric data, adjusting for socioeconomic and life-style characteristics, using single as well as multi-pollutant approach. Results: No associations were observed between air pollution exposures and global volumes of total brain, and cortical and subcortical grey matter. However, we found associations between higher pregnancy and childhood air pollution exposures with smaller corpus callosum, smaller hippocampus, larger amygdala, smaller nucleus accumbens, and larger cerebellum (e.g. -69.2mm3 hippocampal volume [95%CI -129.1 to -9.3] per 1ng/m3 increase in pregnancy exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons). Higher pregnancy exposure to air pollution was associated with smaller cortical thickness while higher childhood exposure was associated with predominantly larger cortical surface area. Conclusion: Higher pregnancy or childhood exposure to several air pollutants was associated with altered volume of several brain structures, as well as with cortical thickness and surface area. Associations showed some similarity to delayed maturation and effects of early-life stress.