Grant Number:
Principal Investigator:
Arora, Manish
Institution:
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
Most Recent Award Year:
2016
Lifestage of Participants:
Exposure:
Prenatal; Infant (0-1 year); Youth (1-18 years, specifically 1-8 years of age)
Assessment:
Youth (1-18 years, specifically through 8 years of age)
Exposures:
Metals:
Arsenic; Cadmium; Lead; Manganese; Zinc
Mixtures:
Health Outcomes:
Neurological/Cognitive Outcomes:
Neurodevelopmental outcomes
Biological Sample:
Deciduous teeth
Abstract:
Neurodevelopment and cognitive function are among the most important outcomes in public health, particularly with the rise of knowledge-based economies. While it is widely believed that the simultaneous presence of several toxic exposures can alter developmental trajectories of the central nervous system, studies designed to address mixed chemical exposures are rare, and represent a critical need in the field of public health. Multiple barriers are inherent to conducting mixtures research and must be overcome if this field is to progress. Obvious barriers include the need for large sample sizes and prospective data to assess exposure timing (i.e. critical developmental windows). Two additional barriers include exposure misclassification and lack of statistical approaches available for higher dimensional interactions. Our proposal addresses all of these barriers directly and will establish a framework for the study of chemical mixtures that can be applied broadly in environmental health. We have developed a novel biomarker that can objectively reconstruct the dose and timing of past chemical exposure using deciduous teeth. This biomarker differs from standard tooth biomarkers as it combines sophisticated histological and chemical analyses to precisely sample dentine layers corresponding to specific life stages, generating integrated, longitudinal weekly exposure estimates in the second and third trimesters and during early childhood. Our proposal will address mixed metal exposure, as a first step. We note, however, that our approach can and will be applied to organic chemicals in the future, and we are in parallel developing methods for their analysis in teeth. On another front, we will also apply cutting-edge statistical machine learning methods. In this study, we will focus on five metals/metalloids that are of public health significance, manganese (Mn), lead (Pb), arsenic (As), zinc (Zn) and cadmium (Cd). We will conduct this study in the Early Life Exposures in MExico and NeuroToxicology (ELEMENT), a prospective birth cohort using advanced methods in social science, genetics and toxicology to assess transdisciplinary risk factors impacting neurodevelopment.
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Related NIEHS-Funded Study Populations
Early Life Exposures in Mexico to Environmental Toxicants (ELEMENT)
Principal Investigator:
Hu, Howard; Peterson, Karen; Hernandez-Avila, Mauricio; Tellez-Rojo, Martha Maria
| Study Population Page Study Population c49
Institution:
University of Michigan
Location:
Mexico City, Mexico
Number of Participants::
1,653
Brief Description::
This is a group of three sequentially-enrolled, on-going, epidemiologic birth cohort studies in Mexico City with an original aim to investigate the impact of lead on child development. The research aims have since expanded to include a wide range health outcomes and environmental, nutritional, behavioral, genetic, and epigenetic risk factors. More than 1,600 mother-child pairs enrolled in the study beginning in 1994, some of whom have been followed for over two decades.