Brain Abnormalities in Children Exposed Prenatally to the Pesticide Chlorpyrifos.
Level 3 - non-randomized controlled study
Prospective longitudinal pregnancy cohort study assessing environmental exposure and long-term neurodevelopmental outcomes
PubMed 40824645 · doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2025.2818
What was done
A prospective longitudinal pregnancy cohort study in northern Manhattan and the South Bronx, New York (enrolled 1998–2015, analyzed 2018–2024), followed offspring of pregnant women of Dominican or African American descent who had chlorpyrifos (CPF) levels measured at delivery. A subset of 270 youth aged 6.0 to 14.7 years (mean 10.38 years; 123 boys, 147 girls) underwent multimodal neuroimaging—including anatomical MRI (cortical thickness, white matter volume), diffusion tensor imaging, MR spectroscopy (neuronal density), and arterial spin labeling (cerebral blood flow)—alongside cognitive and motor performance testing.
What was found
Progressively higher prenatal CPF exposure levels were significantly associated with thicker frontal, temporal, and posteroinferior cortices; reduced white matter volumes in these regions; higher fractional anisotropy and lower diffusivity in internal capsule white matter; lower regional blood flow throughout the brain; lower indices of neuronal density in deep white matter tracts; and poorer performance on fine motor (β = -0.30; t261 = -5.0; P < .001) and motor programming (β = -0.27; t261 = -4.36; P < .001) tasks.
Why it matters
This study provides direct multimodal neuroimaging evidence in humans demonstrating that prenatal organophosphate pesticide exposure is linked to persistent macrostructural, microstructural, metabolic, and motor deficits in school-aged children.
Limits
The observational design cannot rule out residual confounding or definitively establish causation. Out of 512 eligible mothers with delivery CPF measurements, only 270 children completed neuroimaging, introducing potential selection or attrition bias. The sample was restricted to urban Dominican and African American participants, which may limit generalizability to other populations or exposure pathways. Concomitant environmental exposures were not described in the abstract.
Cited by
- supports A study by Dr. Virginia Rauh published in JAMA Neurology showed that higher prenatal chlorpyrifos exposure is associated with structural brain MRI abnormalities and poorer motor function in children aged 6 to 15.