Early life ambient temperature and brain volumes change throughout childhood.

Authors

Laura Granés, Esmée Essers, Michelle S W Kusters, Sami Petricola, Prof Henning Tiemeier, Prof Carles Soriano-Mas, Prof Joel Schwartz, Prof Mònica Guxens

Published in

Environment international. Volume 214. Pages 110385. Jun 26, 2026. Epub Jun 26, 2026.

Abstract

Climate change impacts on children's neurodevelopment remain poorly understood, particularly the role of early life temperature exposure on brain development. We investigated the association of heat and cold exposure from pregnancy to 8.5 years with brain structural changes from 9 to 15 years. This study was embedded within the Generation R Study, a birth cohort in the Netherlands. Monthly mean temperature was estimated at participants' addresses, using the high-resolution UrbClim model. Brain volumes were collected from 3,251 children through magnetic resonance imaging scans, performed at 10.1 and 14.0 years. Linear mixed models were used to estimate individual volume changes of 11 brain structures, and distributed lag non-linear models were run to investigate the association between temperature and brain volumes change. Exposure to a monthly mean temperature of 20.5 °C (95th percentile) during pregnancy and infancy was associated with slower thalamic growth. The cumulative effect for exposure to 20.5 °C was -25.80 mm³ [95% CI -42.36, -9.25] for the first pregnancy trimester; -25.60 mm³ [95% CI -41.63, -9.56] for the second trimester, and - 22.92 mm³ [95% CI -37.62, -8.23] for the third trimester. The cumulative effect for the first three months of life was -5.31 mm³ [95% CI -8.90, -1.72]. We did not identify any periods of susceptibility for other brain structures or cold exposure. High ambient temperature during pregnancy and infancy was associated with slower thalamic growth later in childhood, suggesting long-term impacts of heat on thalamic development.

PMID:
42385499
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 02 Jul 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.