Weather-related stressors on healthy brain development has become an important topic in recent years. Notably, prenatal stress exposure to natural disasters may disrupt child neurodevelopment, with recent research exploring its impact on child brain morphology. Prenatal exposure to extreme weather events, such as ambient heat, may also affect child brain morphology. The basal ganglia, while historically related to motor ability, has gained increasing attention for its role in various non-motor functions, such as emotion regulation. Leveraging an existing cohort with and without prenatal exposure to Superstorm Sandy (SS), a category 3 hurricane at its peak, this study aims to investigate how prenatal exposure to both a natural disaster and extreme ambient heat impacts this important subcortical region.
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Conclusions: Prenatal exposure to SS impacted child brain development. Extreme heat amplified this risk via increased and reduced brain volume from different basal ganglia subregions. Alongside promoting initiatives to combat climate change, increasing awareness of the potential dangers of exposure to extreme climate events for pregnant individuals is vital for protecting long-term child brain development.
Robin Edgar
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