{"doi":"10.1016/j.envres.2025.121826","title":"Early life phthalate exposure impacts gray matter and white matter volume in infants and young children","abstract":"Objective Prenatal phthalate exposure is associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes, yet data on impacts of early life exposure remains limited. We investigated phthalate and replacement plasticizer exposures from 2 weeks to 7 years of age in relation to brain anatomical attributes, using serial structural magnetic resonance imaging (sMRI). Material and methods Children were enrolled after birth into the UNC Baby Connectome Project, a longitudinal neuroimaging study (North Carolina, USA; 2017–2020). Urine samples (n = 406) were collected at each visit and analyzed for 17 phthalate and replacement plasticizer metabolites. Among 157 children contributing 369 sMRIs, we calculated metabolite-specific average exposures across each individual's urine samples and used linear mixed models to estimate longitudinal associations of log transformed, specific gravity-adjusted average metabolite concentrations with gray and white matter volume, and cortical volume, thickness, and surface area. We examined sex-specific differences in these associations. Results Higher average metabolite concentration was associated with lower gray matter volume (MCPP: (−1.73 cm 3 , 95 % CI: −3.36, −0.10) and higher white matter volume (∑DEHP: 2.28 cm 3 , 95 % CI: 0.08, 4.48). Among boys (n = 72, 140 sMRIs), MEP (−2.97 cm 3 , 95 % CI: −5.85, −0.09) and MiBP (−2.40 cm 3 , 95 % CI: −4.64, −0.15) were also associated with lower gray matter volume. Among females (n = 85, 229 MRIs), higher ∑DINCH exposure was associated with higher white matter volume (2.27 cm 3 , 95 % CI: 0.29, 4.25). We observed significant sex interactions for ∑DEHP with gray matter (p-interaction = 0.03) and ∑DINCH with white matter volume (p-interaction = 0.001). Conclusion Early life phthalate/plasticizer exposure may differentially impact various brain region volumes in early childhood, with potential downstream consequences on functional development.","journal":"Environmental Research","year":2025,"id":523337,"datarank":0.0,"base_score":0.0,"endowment":0.0,"self_citation_contribution":0.0,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.0,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":4,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.7244,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":225653,"name":"Kun Lü","orcid":"0000-0002-8125-2394","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":687693,"name":"Chih‐Wei Liu","orcid":"0000-0002-0823-0252","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":775882,"name":"Jake E. Thistle","orcid":"0000-0002-8308-7855","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":373418,"name":"Julia E. Rager","orcid":"0000-0002-2882-5042","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":314309,"name":"Gang Li","orcid":"0000-0001-9585-1382","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":314305,"name":"Zhengwang Wu","orcid":"0000-0003-4436-9005","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":266787,"name":"Tengfei Li","orcid":"0000-0001-6142-3865","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":250559,"name":"Li Wang","orcid":"0000-0003-2165-0080","position":8,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":104612,"name":"Dale P. Sandler","orcid":"0000-0002-6776-0018","position":9,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":314179,"name":"John H. Gilmore","orcid":"0000-0002-0939-6764","position":10,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":40166,"name":"Joseph Piven","orcid":"0000-0003-0255-9003","position":11,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":14290,"name":"Hongtu Zhu","orcid":"0000-0002-6781-2690","position":12,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":314308,"name":"Weili Lin","orcid":"0000-0002-2900-8204","position":13,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":339701,"name":"Stephanie M. Engel","orcid":"0000-0002-3942-1246","position":14,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":350210,"name":"Emily J. Werder","orcid":"0000-0001-8757-6341","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":57,"raw_metadata":null,"created_at":"2026-07-19T02:50:03.004175Z","pmid":"40355063","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}