Distinct Brain Maturation Pathways Relate Environmental Variation to Cognitive Development

Abstract

Adolescent cognitive ability develops within a complex landscape of environmental exposures, yet the patterns of brain maturation through which these exposures relate to cognitive development remain poorly understood. Resolving this requires an integrated longitudinal view of the multidimensional exposome, multimodal brain change, and cognitive growth. Here, we examined whether brain maturation mediates the relationship between the exposome and cognitive development in a large longitudinal cohort of 1,112 adolescents, using 4,882 multimodal brain features and 112 exposome variables spanning six domains. Brain maturation patterns associated with cognitive development showed moderate yet consistent spatial correspondence with those associated with the exposome, with the family environment domain showing the strongest correspondence. We identified four latent brain patterns associated with distinct components of the exposome-cognition relationship. Collectively, these results indicate that distinct exposome domains relate to cognitive development through distinct brain maturation pathways, which also exhibit different molecular annotation profiles.