SynthesisSocial psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology2025
Do prenatal factors shape the risk for dementia?: A systematic review of the epidemiological evidence for the prenatal origins of dementia.
Synthesis in Social psychiatry and psychiatric epidemiology, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed, 15 citations in OpenAlex.
- Dementia in type 2 diabetes: risk factors, disease processes and opportunities for prevention across the lifespan.Diabetologia · 2026Review
- Review
- Long-Term Association of Cardiovascular Risk Burden With Dementia Risk: The Role of Life-Course Confounders in an Analysis of Cumulative and Specific Factors.Journal of the American Heart Association · 2026Article
- The relationship between low birth weight and neurological disorders: a prospective cohort study in the UK Biobank.BMC neurology · 2026Article
- Tau Hypophosphorylation at Ser416 as the Early Molecular Imprint of Maternal Immune Activation: Insights from Female Mice Offspring.International journal of molecular sciences · 2025Article
- Birthweight and risk of chronic kidney disease after a type 2 diabetes diagnosis in the DD2 cohort.Diabetologia · 2025Article
- Inhibition of BET proteins modulates amyloid-beta accumulation and cognitive performance in middle-aged mice prenatally exposed to maternal immune activation.Frontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2025Article
- Prenatal exposure to undernutrition is associated with a specific lipid profile predicting future brain aging.npj aging · 2024Review
- Low birthweight in patients with type 2 diabetes is associated with elevated risk of cardiovascular events and mortality.Diabetologia · 2024Article
- Charting Alzheimer's Disease and Dementia: Epidemiological Insights, Risk Factors and Prevention Pathways.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Review
- Controversial Past, Splendid Present, Unpredictable Future: A Brief Review of Alzheimer Disease History.Journal of clinical medicine · 2024Review
- Prenatal Exposure to the 1944-45 Dutch Famine and Risk for Dementia up to Age 75: An Analysis of Primary Care Data.Current Alzheimer research · 2024Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
purposePrenatal factors such as maternal stress, infection and nutrition affect fetal brain development and may also influence later risk for dementia. The purpose of this systematic review was to provide an overview of all studies which investigated the association between prenatal factors and later risk for dementia.
methodsWe systematically searched MEDLINE and Embase for original human studies reporting on associations between prenatal factors and dementia from inception to 23 November 2022. Prenatal factors could be any factor assessed during pregnancy, at birth or postnatally, provided they were indicative of a prenatal exposure. Risk of bias was assessed using the Newcastle Ottawa Scale. We followed PRISMA guidelines for reporting.
resultsA total of 68 studies met eligibility criteria (including millions of individuals), assessing maternal age (N = 30), paternal age (N = 22), birth order (N = 15), season of birth (N = 16), place of birth (N = 13), prenatal influenza pandemic (N = 1) or Chinese famine exposure (N = 1), birth characteristics (N = 3) and prenatal hormone exposure (N = 4). We observed consistent results for birth in a generally less optimal environment (e.g. high infant mortality area) being associated with higher dementia risk. Lower and higher birth weight and prenatal famine exposure were associated with higher dementia risk. The studies on season of birth, digit ratio, prenatal influenza pandemic exposure, parental age and birth order showed inconsistent results and were hampered by relatively high risk of bias.
conclusionOur findings suggest that some prenatal factors, especially those related to a suboptimal prenatal environment, are associated with an increased dementia risk. As these associations may be confounded by factors such as parental socioeconomic status, more research is needed to examine the potential causal role of the prenatal environment in dementia.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
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.