ArticleSchizophrenia bulletin2015
Brain structure correlates of urban upbringing, an environmental risk factor for schizophrenia.
Article in Schizophrenia bulletin, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 71 papers, 3 of them syntheses that pooled it.
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Who cites it
71 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 177 citations in OpenAlex.
- Defining Urbanicity in the Context of Psychosis Research: A Qualitative Systematic Literature Review.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2025Pooled it
- Neurostructural traces of early life adversities: A meta-analysis exploring age- and adversity-specific effects.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2022Pooled it
- The mental health and wellbeing of first generation migrants: a systematic-narrative review of reviews.Globalization and health · 2016Pooled it
- Stress Response and Cognitive Performance Modulation in Classroom versus Natural Environments: A Quasi-Experimental Pilot Study with Children.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2018Trial
- Socioeconomic Disadvantage Moderates the Association between Peripheral Biomarkers and Childhood Psychopathology.PloS one · 2016Trial
- Thriving in the City: An Urban Living Lab to Facilitate Recovery From Psychosis.Early intervention in psychiatry · 2026Article
- Investigating effects of day-to-day variations in environmental exposure on the human brain: study protocol for the Day2Day Environment project.BMC neuroscience · 2026Article
- Neighborhood Characteristics and Psychosis Risk Across Development.Schizophrenia research · 2026Article
- Association between the Korea-Polyenvironmental Risk Score and Clinical Outcomes in Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders.Schizophrenia bulletin · 2026Article
- Association Between Urban Upbringing and Cortical Gyrification in Persons with Schizophrenia.Indian journal of psychological medicine · 2025Article
- Association of social and environmental exposures at the neighborhood level with child brain volume.Environment international · 2025Article
- Considering the interconnected nature of social identities in neuroimaging research.Nature neuroscience · 2025Review
- Exploring urban mental health using mobile EEG - a systematic review.PLOS mental health · 2025Article
- Developmental perspectives on the origins of psychotic disorders: The need for a transdiagnostic approach.Development and psychopathology · 2024Review
- How does the macroenvironment influence brain and behaviour-a review of current status and future perspectives.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Review
- Neural Correlates of Early-Life Urbanization and Their Spatial Relationships with Gene Expression, Neurotransmitter, and Behavioral Domain Atlases.Molecular neurobiology · 2024Article
- Exploring causal mechanisms of psychosis risk.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2024Review
- Low-Level Visual Features of Window Views Contribute to Perceived Naturalness and Mental Health Outcomes.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2024Article
- Smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment reveals an incremental association between natural diversity and mental wellbeing.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Childhood urbanicity is associated with emotional episodic memory-related striatal function and common variation in NTRK2.BMC medicine · 2024Article
11 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Urban upbringing has consistently been associated with schizophrenia, but which specific environmental exposures are reflected by this epidemiological observation and how they impact the developing brain to increase risk is largely unknown. On the basis of prior observations of abnormal functional brain processing of social stress in urban-born humans and preclinical evidence for enduring structural brain effects of early social stress, we investigated a possible morphological correlate of urban upbringing in human brain. In a sample of 110 healthy subjects studied with voxel-based morphometry, we detected a strong inverse correlation between early-life urbanicity and gray matter (GM) volume in the right dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC, Brodmann area 9). Furthermore, we detected a negative correlation of early-life urbanicity and GM volumes in the perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (pACC) in men only. Previous work has linked volume reductions in the DLPFC to the exposure to psychosocial stress, including stressful experiences in early life. Besides, anatomical and functional alterations of this region have been identified in schizophrenic patients and high-risk populations. Previous data linking functional hyperactivation of pACC during social stress to urban upbringing suggest that the present interaction effect in brain structure might contribute to an increased risk for schizophrenia in males brought up in cities. Taken together, our results suggest a neural mechanism by which early-life urbanicity could impact brain architecture to increase the risk for schizophrenia.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.