AAMorph9ExPE

Background: 

Early exposure to environmental pollutants is suspected of leading to neurodevelopmental disorders, causing anxiety and depression, and affecting brain function through mechanisms that are not yet fully understood, which impact neuroplasticity during neurodevelopment. Some neuroimaging studies suggest that the fronto-limbic regions and structures such as the amygdala and hippocampus show volume reductions associated with certain air pollutants (PM2.5) or environmental pollutants (bisphenol A) (Zundel et al., 2022). At the IAB in Grenoble, the team led by Dr. R. Slama and Dr. C. Philippat has established a parent-child cohort, the SEPAGES cohort, to study the relationships between early exposure to various pollutants and children’s neurodevelopment. Multiple urine samples were collected during pregnancy and after birth to obtain precise measurements of exposure to these pollutants. Currently, MRI brain imaging acquisitions of these children at age 9 are underway, with a planned cohort of 200 children at term. The relationships between exposure markers and brain morphometry will thus be studied using advanced statistical methods.

Student contributions:

The student’s task will be to implement automated analysis of brain morphometry (volume of cortical and subcortical gray matter, volume and shape of the hippocampus and its subregions, extraction of major sulci, …), to apply these analyses in real time, and, using the cohort obtained in late May 2025, to explore the relationships between these morphometric measures and exposure.

This course is divided into three parts:

• Reviewing the literature to assess the current situation, identify particularly relevant target regions, and identify specific software tools to use.
• Implementation of an automated morphometric analysis pipeline. Testing on new subjects. Evaluation of measurement quality.
• Exploring the relationships between morphometric measurements and environmental exposure measures.