Environmental Neurotoxicants, Anxiety and Depression in Children and What Neuroimaging Reveals

Anxiety and depression, the psychiatrist’s and psychologist’s bread and butter, are the most common mental disorders across the globe. Their public health impact is enormous, over $1 trillion per year. Prevalence of both anxiety and depression in children has risen notably over the past decade. Did you know that exposure to environmental toxins, including air pollution, is consistently linked to risk for depression and anxiety, especially in children? Did you know that 99% of us humans live where the WHO’s air quality standards are NOT met!? Better management and clean-up of the burden of toxin on our environment could well represent a major path towards curbing the rise in mental illness in our society. Our fifth lecture of the 2024 season will be on the associations between environmental toxins and pediatric mood disorders. In particular, we will learn what neuroimaging has to contribute. What are some possible environmental causes of pediatric mood disorders? What are the brain mechanisms through which exposures could lead to mental dysfunction?

Our guide will be Dr. Kim Cecil. For years Dr. Cecil has led and supported major NIH-funded and other studies, including longitudinal pediatric ones, of effects of toxic exposures on the brain. This includes work with flame retardants, air pollutants, polybrominated diphenyl ethers, manganese, lead, and more using multiple magnetic resonance neuroimaging modalities. Dr. Cecil is, moreover, a highly trained and skillful MR spectroscopist who has effectively applied MRS techniques in the field of toxic exposures.