Cognitive, Immunological, and Neurophysiological Consequences of Home Radon Exposure in Children and Adolescents

项目概要/摘要：研究项目（1） 认知、免疫和神经生理学后果 儿童和青少年的家庭氡暴露 广大公众已经敏锐地意识到环境污染物和毒素对环境的影响。 发展体。从铅和杀虫剂到香烟烟雾和工业空气污染， 表明环境毒素对青年的发展具有重大和持久的影响， 认知和大脑发育的缺陷。这些后果可能会对学术界产生深远的影响。 成就和心理健康。也就是说，一种令人惊讶的常见但很少被研究的环境毒素是 氡。氡是一种自然产生的放射性气体，在家中积聚，对健康造成重大影响。 风险，包括患某些癌症的风险增加，以及对发育敏感组织的损害 和器官（例如，大脑）通过加重的炎症过程。美国（US）环境 美国环境保护署（EPA）将家庭氡浓度的行动限值设定为4 pCi/L，这是致癌物质。 相当于每天抽10支烟。预计美国每15户家庭中就有1户将 氡浓度达到或超过环保署的行动限制，使全国各地的大量青年 长期暴露在高浓度的氡中然而，将氡毒性与神经系统改变联系起来的研究 认知能力的发展是极其稀少的。目前的建议旨在填补这一关键的知识空白 通过研究氡暴露的毒性水平对大脑和认知功能的影响， 青年我们开创性的初步工作是第一个显示这种关注（即，指挥和维持 专注于特定的刺激和任务）受到氡暴露的独特影响。具体来说，我们发现， 长期暴露在较高的家中氡水平的年轻人在行为方面的表现明显较差， 注意力的措施，并表现出改变的关键大脑网络内的注意力 和更高层次的认知。在目前的多模式神经成像研究中，我们将量化家庭的影响， 氡暴露对儿童和青少年发育过程中多个不同注意系统的影响。为此， 我们将招募大量典型发育的青少年样本，他们将接受脑磁图检查（MEG） 在一系列旨在评估多个独特的神经系统服务于注意力处理的任务中。 青少年还将完成结构磁共振成像（MRI），完成一系列神经心理学 评估针对注意力的能力，并提供唾液样本，以捕捉炎症的措施， 在氡暴露的情况下会升高。我们的具体目标是：1）识别特定的注意力 域和神经基板的氡暴露的影响，和2）量化的机械作用， 氡通过炎症过程改变青年人的注意力发展。本研究的结果 有可能塑造未来的公共卫生政策，围绕氡的认识和缓解工作， 在周边地区尤其如此，那里的家庭氡水平是全国最高的。

Project Summary/Abstract: Research Project (1) Cognitive, Immunological, and Neurophysiological Consequences of Home Radon Exposure in Children and Adolescents The public at large has grown keenly aware of the effects of environmental pollutants and toxins on the developing body. From lead and pesticides to cigarette smoke and industrial air pollution, studies consistently show that environmental toxins have substantial, lasting impacts on the development of youth, including chronic deficits in cognitive and brain development. These consequences can have reverberating impacts on academic achievement and mental health. That said, one surprisingly common, but rarely studied environmental toxin is radon. Radon is a naturally occurring radioactive gas that accumulates in homes and poses significant health risks, including increased risk of developing certain cancers, and damage to developmentally sensitive tissues and organs (e.g., the brain) through accentuated inflammatory processes. The United States (US) Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) set the action limit for home radon concentrations at 4 pCi/L, which is the carcinogenic equivalent of smoking 10 cigarettes per day. An astonishing 1 in 15 homes across the US is expected to have radon concentrations at or above the EPA action limit, leaving a large number of youth across the country chronically exposed to high concentrations of radon. However, studies linking radon toxicity to altered neural and cognitive development are extremely sparse. The current proposal aims to address this critical gap in knowledge by examining the impact of toxic levels of radon exposure on brain and cognitive function in typically-developing youth. Our groundbreaking preliminary work is the first to show that attention (i.e., the ability to direct and maintain focus on specific stimuli and tasks) is uniquely impacted by radon exposure. Specifically, we have found that youth who are chronically-exposed to higher home radon levels had markedly worse performance on behavioral measures of attention, and exhibited altered neural dynamics within the critical brain networks serving attention and higher-order cognition. In the current multimodal neuroimaging study, we will quantify the impact of home radon exposure on multiple distinct attentional systems during child and adolescent development. To this end, we will enroll a large sample of typically-developing youth who will undergo magnetoencephalography (MEG) during a battery of tasks designed to assess multiple unique neural systems serving attentional processing. Youth will also complete structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), complete a battery of neuropsychological assessments targeting attentional abilities, and provide saliva samples to capture measures of inflammation that are known to be elevated in the context of radon exposure. Our specific aims are to 1) identify specific attentional domains and neural substrates that are affected by radon exposure, and 2) quantify the mechanistic role of inflammatory processes through which radon alters attentional development in youth. The outcomes of this study have the potential to shape the future of public health policy surrounding radon awareness and mitigation efforts, and this is especially true in the surrounding region where home radon levels are some of the highest in the nation.