Air pollution and fetal brain morphological development: a prospective cohort study

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  • dc.contributor.author Gómez Herrera, Laura C.
  • dc.contributor.author Zhao, Yu
  • dc.contributor.author Rivas, Ioar
  • dc.contributor.author Galmés, Toni
  • dc.contributor.author Domínguez, Alan
  • dc.contributor.author Cirach, Marta
  • dc.contributor.author Nieuwenhuijsen, Mark J.
  • dc.contributor.author Basagaña Flores, Xavier
  • dc.contributor.author Bustamante Pineda, Mariona
  • dc.contributor.author Pujol, Jesús
  • dc.contributor.author Gascon Merlos, Mireia, 1984-
  • dc.contributor.author Dadvand, Payam
  • dc.contributor.author Sunyer Deu, Jordi
  • dc.date.accessioned 2025-07-29T06:40:17Z
  • dc.date.available 2025-07-29T06:40:17Z
  • dc.date.issued 2025
  • dc.description.abstract Background: There is a scarcity of evidence of the influence of exposure to air pollution during pregnancy on the human fetal brain characterised prenatally. We aimed to evaluate the association of exposure to air pollution with fetal brain morphology. Methods: In this prospective cohort study, we used data from the Barcelona Life Study Cohort, Spain, which recruited 1080 pregnant women at 8-14 weeks of gestation between Oct 16, 2018, and April 14, 2021, from three major university hospitals in Barcelona. Eligible participants were aged 18-45 years, had a singleton pregnancy, and had a fetus without major congenital anomalies. Third-trimester transvaginal neurosonography was applied to evaluate fetal brain morphological development. We integrated comprehensive data on time-activity patterns with land use regression, dispersion, and hybrid models to estimate exposure to NO2, PM2·5, and black carbon at home, workplace, and commuting routes during pregnancy until the neurosonography date. Single-pollutant linear mixed regression models and multipollutant ridge regression models were applied to estimate the associations between air pollutants and fetal brain outcomes, controlled for confounders. Distributed lag linear models were used to identify the vulnerable windows. Findings: Among 1080 participants recruited at baseline, 954 attended the follow-up for the neurosonographic examination, 754 of whom were included in this study. In single-pollutant models, we found that prenatal exposure to NO2, PM2·5, and black carbon was associated with a wider anterior horn of lateral ventricles, wider cisterna magna, and larger cerebellar vermis. We also observed that higher exposure to black carbon was related to a shallower Sylvian fissure. No clear pattern or associations were observed between air pollution and other structures of brain morphology. Multipollutant models showed that these associations with black carbon remained significant, whereas associations with PM2·5 and NO2 lost significance for some indicators. A potential vulnerability window in mid-to-late pregnancy was identified for these associations. Interpretation: Exposure to air pollution might affect brain morphological development as early as the fetal stage. Our findings could have important policy implications as they highlight the need to mitigate exposure of pregnant individuals to air pollution in urban areas to protect fetal brain development. Funding: European Research Council.
  • dc.description.sponsorship We acknowledge support from the grant CEX2023-0001290-S funded by MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033, and support from the Generalitat de Catalunya through the CERCA Programme. We thank all the participants and their families for their generous collaboration. Thanks to all the researchers who work with the BiSC cohort. A full list of BiSC researchers can be found at https://projectebisc.org/en/team/. We extend our acknowledgment to the European Research Council under the EU's Horizon 2020 (H2020) research and innovation programme (785994: AirNB project); the Health Effects Institute (4959-RFA17-1/18-1; FRONTIER project); H2020-EU.3.1.2. (874583; ATHLETE project), H2020-EU.3.1.1. (GA964827; AURORA project), the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement (886121); Agence Nationale de Sécurité Sanitaire de L'alimentation, de L'environnement et du Travail (2019/01/039; HyPAXE project); AXA Research Fund (MOOD-COVID project); the Instituto de Salud Carlos III and the European Regional Development Fund—Maternal and Child Health and Development Network (RD16/0022/0014 and RD16/0022/0015); the AGAUR-Agència de Gestió d’Ajuts Universitaris de Recerca (2017 SGR 826; Population Neuroscience group); the Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Epidemiología y Salud Pública (CB06/02/0041); and the Instituto de Salud Carlos III and the European Union Next Generation EU—Primary Care Interventions to Prevent Maternal and Child Chronic Diseases of Perinatal and Developmental Origin Network (RD21/0012/0001 and RD21/0012/0003) for funding the BiSC cohort. This publication is part of the fellowship RYC2021-032781-I awarded to IR.
  • dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
  • dc.identifier.citation Gómez-Herrera L, Zhao Y, Rivas I, Eixarch E, Domínguez-Gallardo C, Galmes T, et al. Air pollution and fetal brain morphological development: a prospective cohort study. Lancet Planet Health. 2025 Jun;9(6):e480-90. DOI: 10.1016/S2542-5196(25)00093-2
  • dc.identifier.doi http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(25)00093-2
  • dc.identifier.issn 2542-5196
  • dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/10230/71013
  • dc.language.iso eng
  • dc.publisher Elsevier
  • dc.relation.ispartof Lancet Planet Health. 2025 Jun;9(6):e480-90
  • dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/785994
  • dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/874583
  • dc.relation.projectID info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/EC/H2020/964827
  • dc.rights © 2025 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an Open Access article under the CC BY 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
  • dc.rights.accessRights info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
  • dc.rights.uri http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
  • dc.subject.other Contaminació
  • dc.title Air pollution and fetal brain morphological development: a prospective cohort study
  • dc.type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
  • dc.type.version info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion

Col·leccions

Articles (Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal) – Campus Mar)
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Documents OpenAIRE (Open Access Infrastructure for Research in Europe)