ArticlePloS one2021
Risk of lead exposure, subcortical brain structure, and cognition in a large cohort of 9- to 10-year-old children.
Article in PloS one, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 30 citations in OpenAlex.
- Toxicant exposure and the developing brain: A systematic review of the structural and functional MRI literature.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2023Pooled it
- Identifying associations and key early life exposure windows for organophosphate esters and adolescent brain morphometry in the HOME study.Environmental research · 2026Article
- Dentine markers of pre/early postnatal lead exposure links with brain, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes in adolescents.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Childhood Opportunity Index 2.0 and Cognition via the NIH Toolbox.Archives of clinical neuropsychology : the official journal of the National Academy of Neuropsychologists · 2026Article
- Geographic Measures of Early Life-Course Social Exposome in the Evaluation of Structural Neuroanatomy: A Scoping Review.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2026Review
- The effect of the "exposome" on developmental brain health and cognitive outcomes.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Review
- Cognitive Resilience and Vulnerability to Socioeconomic Disadvantage: Predictors Across Individual, Family, School, and Neighborhood Contexts.Developmental science · 2026Article
- Multivariate environmental exposures are reflected in whole-brain functional connectivity and cognition in youth.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Developmental Pb exposure increases rate of forgetting on a delayed matching-to-sample task among Mexican children.Science advances · 2025Article
- Functional Brain Connectivity Predictors of Prospective Substance Use Initiation and Their Environmental Correlates.Biological psychiatry. Cognitive neuroscience and neuroimaging · 2025Article
- The relationship between mixed exposure to blood metal and serum neurofilament light chain levels in the general U.S. population: an unsupervised clustering approach.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- Effects of prenatal lead, mercury, cadmium, and arsenic exposure on children's neurodevelopment in an artisanal small-scale gold mining area in Northwestern Tanzania using a multi-chemical exposure model.PLOS global public health · 2025Article
- Article
- Review
- The impact of psychosocial adversity on brain and behaviour: an overview of existing knowledge and directions for future research.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Review
- Functional brain connectivity predictors of prospective substance use initiation and their environmental correlates.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2024Article
- Building towards an adolescent neural urbanome: Expanding environmental measures using linked external data (LED) in the ABCD study.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2024Article
- Hippocampal and amygdala volumes vary with residential proximity to toxicants at Birmingham, Alabama's 35th Avenue Superfund site.Behavioral neuroscience · 2023Article
- Joint polygenic and environmental risks for childhood attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and ADHD symptom dimensions.JCPP advances · 2023Article
- Pediatric Exposures to Neurotoxicants: A Review of Magnetic Resonance Imaging and Spectroscopy Findings.Diagnostics (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundLead, a toxic metal, affects cognitive development at the lowest measurable concentrations found in children, but little is known about its direct impact on brain development. Recently, we reported widespread decreases in cortical surface area and volume with increased risks of lead exposure, primarily in children of low-income families. METHODS AND
findingsWe examined associations of neighborhood-level risk of lead exposure with cognitive test performance and subcortical brain volumes. We also examined whether subcortical structure mediated associations between lead risk and cognitive performance. Our analyses employed a cross-sectional analysis of baseline data from the observational Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study. The multi-center ABCD Study used school-based enrollment to recruit a demographically diverse cohort of almost 11,900 9- and 10-year-old children from an initial 22 study sites. The analyzed sample included data from 8,524 typically developing child participants and their parents or caregivers. The primary outcomes and measures were subcortical brain structure, cognitive performance using the National Institutes of Health Toolbox, and geocoded risk of lead exposure. Children who lived in neighborhoods with greater risks of environmental lead exposure exhibited smaller volumes of the mid-anterior (partial correlation coefficient [rp] = -0.040), central (rp = -0.038), and mid-posterior corpus callosum (rp = -0.035). Smaller volumes of these three callosal regions were associated with poorer performance on cognitive tests measuring language and processing speed. The association of lead exposure risk with cognitive performance was partially mediated through callosal volume, particularly the mid-posterior corpus callosum. In contrast, neighborhood-level indicators of disadvantage were not associated with smaller volumes of these brain structures.
conclusionsEnvironmental factors related to the risk of lead exposure may be associated with certain aspects of cognitive functioning via diminished subcortical brain structure, including the anterior splenium (i.e., mid-posterior corpus callosum).
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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.