AUTHOR=Ray Bhaskar , Jensen Dawn , Suresh Pranav , Thapaliya Bishal , Sapkota Ram , Farahdel Britny , Fu Zening , Chen Jiayu , Calhoun Vince D. , Liu Jingyu 

TITLE=Adolescent brain maturation associated with environmental factors: a multivariate analysis

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Neuroimaging

VOLUME=Volume 3 - 2024

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/neuroimaging/articles/10.3389/fnimg.2024.1390409

DOI=10.3389/fnimg.2024.1390409

ISSN=2813-1193

ABSTRACT=Human adolescence marks a crucial phase of extensive brain development, highly susceptible to environmental influences. Employing brain age estimation to assess individual brain aging, we categorized individuals (N = 7,435, aged 9–10 years old) from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) cohort into groups exhibiting either accelerated or delayed brain maturation, where the accelerated group also displayed increased cognitive performance compared to their delayed counterparts. A 4-way multi-set canonical correlation analysis integrating three modalities of brain metrics (gray matter density, brain morphological measures, and functional network connectivity) with nine environmental factors unveiled a significant 4-way canonical correlation between linked patterns of neural features, air pollution, area crime, and population density. Correlations among the three brain modalities were notably strong (ranging from 0.65 to 0.77), linking reduced gray matter density in the middle temporal gyrus and precuneus to decreased volumes in the left medial orbitofrontal cortex paired with increased cortical thickness in the right supramarginal and bilateral occipital regions, as well as increased functional connectivity in occipital sub-regions. These specific brain characteristics were significantly more pronounced in the accelerated brain aging group compared to the delayed group. Additionally, these brain regions exhibited significant associations with air pollution, area crime, and population density, where lower air pollution and higher area crime and population density were correlated to brain variations more prominently in the accelerated brain aging group.