Fine particulate matter air pollution and longitudinal gray matter development changes during early adolescence: variation by neighborhood disadvantage level

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_2.5) pollution and adolescent brain development, including longitudinal changes in cortical thickness, surface area, and subcortical/white matter volume from ages 9–13 years (n = 8,321 participants from the ABCD Study®; 12,634 observations). We found that, in more disadvantaged neighborhoods, higher PM_2.5 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_2.5 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_2.5 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.