Early-Life Environmental Exposures and Brain Structure in Schizophrenia
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Background
Schizophrenia is widely considered a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by premorbid alterations in brain structure. Urban upbringing is a well-established environmental risk factor. However, urbanicity is often operationalised using broad population-based measures, leaving unclear which features of urban environments might affect the developing brain. This gap limits progress in understanding the pathways linking urban upbringing to schizophrenia, an increasingly important question as global urbanisation progresses. Cortical gyrification is especially informative in this context, as it is largely established before birth and remains relatively stable thereafter, offering a promising retrospective marker of early-life neurodevelopmental disturbances.
Study Design
In this case-control MRI study, we examined whether residential environmental exposures at birth were associated with adult brain structure in 51 individuals with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder and 88 healthy controls matched for age, sex and socioeconomic status. Birth addresses were linked to geospatial measures of air pollution, green space, built volume, built surface and population density.
Study Results
Higher air pollution at birth was associated with lower cortical gyrification in individuals with schizophrenia, but not in healthy controls, particularly in orbitofrontal and inferior frontal regions. No comparable associations were observed for grey matter volume, cortical thickness or surface area.
Conclusions
These findings suggest that air pollution at birth may be linked to hypogyria in schizophrenia and provide a potential bridge between epidemiological research on urbanicity and neurodevelopmental models of schizophrenia. In turn, this work provides a critical starting point for future work assessing how early urban environments become biologically embedded in schizophrenia risk.
