Satellite and brain data show environmental impacts on young brains

A pioneering new study links satellite and brain imaging data to identify how environmental factors can impact mental health, cognition and brain development in young people.

The research appears in the journal Nature Mental Health.

The study represents an advance in understanding how specific environmental conditions may affect the brains of young people.

“The findings highlight the importance of the urban environment in mental health. We see a critical window during childhood and adolescence where environmental factors can shape future cognitive and behavioral development,” says the study’s senior author and principal investigator Vince Calhoun, a professor of psychology at Georgia State University. Calhoun has faculty appointments at Georgia Tech and Emory University, and leads the Center for Translational Research in Neuroimaging and Data Science Center.

The researchers used a dataset from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, which is the largest ongoing study on child brain development in the US. For the study, the team analyzed data collected from 11,800 children across 21 US cities.

Calhoun says by linking fMRI imaging with satellite data, including the location of study participants, researchers were able to more robustly identify how the physical environment influences cognition and mental health outcomes in children ages 9 to 10.

Collaborating closely with the ABCD team, the researchers released their results as part of ABCD Data Release 5.0. This enables the research community to address critical questions regarding the connection between the environment and mental health.

Lead author and New Light Technologies Chief Scientist Ran Goldblatt says researchers analyzed satellite-based observations, including different types of land cover and land use and the amount of light emitted at night as captured by satellites. These “UrbanSat” data can be coupled to neuroimaging and behavioral measures to provide insights.

“The ABCD dataset provides a unique opportunity for a much deeper understanding of associations between a range of indicators of the complex physical urban environment and their impacts on mental health,” Goldblatt says.

“This dataset also allows us to observe dynamic environmental changes and their impact on mental health over time, pinpointing specific interventions to boost mental well-being in various communities.”

The study looked at how land is used, including factors like light pollution and the number of buildings in an area, as a way to understand the area’s social and economic status. The researchers found that places with more light at night and more buildings tended to have lower levels of parental education and household income, while areas with more trees and plants were linked to higher education and income.

“With the precise, objective measurements of environmental aspects such as greenspaces, the density of urban areas and water bodies, the ABCD dataset can enrich our understanding of how physical surroundings impact brain activity through diverse complex physiological, psychological and social processes,” Calhoun says.

“In this new study, we see that unique environmental and physical features may impact the extent and patterns of the brain’s gray and white matter and its functional network connectivity.”

Additional researchers from Heidelberg University in Mannheim, Germany; Rutgers University; New York Medical College School of Medicine; the University of California, San Diego; the University of Southern California in Los Angeles; the Laureate Institute for Brain Research; Tianjin Medical University General Hospital in Tianjin, China; and the Centre for Population Neuroscience and Stratified Medicine (PONS) in Berlin contributed to the work.

Funding for the work came from the National Institutes of Health.

Source: University of Georgia