Effects of prenatal exposures to air sulfur dioxide/nitrogen dioxide on toddler neurodevelopment and effect modification by ambient temperature

• Published in: Ecotoxicology and environmental safety Vol. 230; p. 113118
• Main Authors: Yu, Ting, Zhou, Leilei, Xu, Jian, Kan, Haidong, Chen, Renjie, Chen, Shuwen, Hua, Hui, Liu, Zhiwei, Yan, Chonghuai
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Netherlands Elsevier Inc 15.01.2022; Elsevier
• Subjects: Air pollution; Effect modification; Neurodevelopment; Prenatal exposure; Temperature; Toddler; Temperature; DQs; IQ; DLNMs; Prenatal exposure; NO2; GDS; SO2; Effect modification; Neurodevelopment; Air pollution; Toddler; GSI
• ISSN: 0147-6513; 1090-2414
• DOI: 10.1016/j.ecoenv.2021.113118

Emerging evidence suggests that prenatal exposure to ambient SO2 or NO2 induces fetal brain-damage. However, effects of prenatal exposure to SO2 or NO2 on toddler neurodevelopment and the effect-modification by ambient temperature remain unclear. Therefore, a prospective birth-cohort study was conducted from 2010 to 2012 in Shanghai, and 225 mother-child pairs were followed-up from mid-to-late pregnancy until 24–36 months postpartum. During the whole pregnancy, daily SO2/NO2 and temperature levels were obtained for each woman. Gesell-Development-Schedule was used to assess toddler neurodevelopment in the domains of gross-motor, fine-motor, adaptive-behavior, language and social-behavior. Distributed-lag-nonlinear-models simultaneously accounting for exposure-response and lag-response associations were applied to assess the impacts of prenatal SO2/NO2 exposure on neurodevelopment. Each 10-μg/m3 increase in weekly average SO2 concentrations had adverse associations with gross-motor in gestational-weeks 1–6, with adaptive-behavior in weeks 26–30, and with language in weeks 30–36 (developmental-quotient changes: − 1.17% to − 0.12%, P-values < 0.05). Each 10-μg/m3 increase in weekly average NO2 concentrations had adverse associations with gross-motor in gestational-weeks 33–36, with fine-motor in weeks 26–36 and with social-behavior in weeks 31–36 (developmental-quotient changes: − 0.91% to − 0.20%, P-values < 0.05). The cumulative effects for the whole pregnancy showed that each 10-μg/m3 increase in SO2 induced significant deficits in gross-motor and adaptive-behavior (developmental-quotient changes: − 4.71% and − 4.06%, respectively, P < 0.05). We found prenatal cumulative SO2 exposure induced more deficits in low temperature in language and adaptive-behavior than in high/moderate temperature. Thus, prenatal ambient SO2/NO2 exposure in specific time-windows (1st and 3rd trimesters for SO2; 3rd trimester for NO2) could impair toddler neurodevelopment and low temperature may aggravate the SO2-induced neurotoxicity. [Display omitted] •Prenatal SO2/NO2 exposure was associated with toddler neurodevelopmental deficits.•Windows of vulnerability to prenatal SO2 exposure were in the 1st and 3rd trimesters.•Windows of vulnerability to prenatal NO2 exposure were in the 3rd trimester.•The neurotoxicity of prenatal SO2 exposure was aggravated by low temperature.