Global urbanicity is associated with brain and behaviour in young people

Jiayuan Xu^{1

2}, Xiaoxuan Liu³, Qiaojun Li⁴, Ran Goldblatt⁵, Wen Qin¹, Feng Liu¹, Congying Chu², Qiang Luo^{6

7}, Alex Ing², Lining Guo¹, Nana Liu¹, Huaigui Liu¹, Conghong Huang³, Jingliang Cheng⁸, Meiyun Wang⁹, Zuojun Geng¹⁰, Wenzhen Zhu¹¹, Bing Zhang¹², Weihua Liao¹³, Shijun Qiu¹⁴, Hui Zhang¹⁵, Xiaojun Xu¹⁶, Yongqiang Yu¹⁷, Bo Gao¹⁸, Tong Han¹⁹, Guangbin Cui²⁰, Feng Chen²¹, Junfang Xian²², Jiance Li²³, Jing Zhang²⁴, Xi-Nian Zuo²⁵, Dawei Wang²⁶, Wen Shen²⁷, Yanwei Miao²⁸, Fei Yuan²⁹, Su Lui³⁰, Xiaochu Zhang³¹, Kai Xu³², Longjiang Zhang³³, Zhaoxiang Ye³⁴, Tobias Banaschewski³⁵, Gareth J Barker³⁶, Arun L W Bokde³⁷, Herta Flor^{38

39}, Antoine Grigis⁴⁰, Hugh Garavan⁴¹, Penny Gowland⁴², Andreas Heinz⁴³, Rüdiger Brühl⁴⁴, Jean-Luc Martinot⁴⁵, Eric Artiges⁴⁶, Frauke Nees^{35

38}, Dimitri Papadopoulos Orfanos⁴⁰, Herve Lemaitre⁴⁷, Tomáš Paus^{48

49}, Luise Poustka⁵⁰, Lauren Robinson⁵¹, Sarah Hohmann³⁵, Juliane H Fröhner⁵², Michael N Smolka⁵², Henrik Walter⁴³, Robert Whelan⁵³, Jeanne Winterer^{54

55}, Kevin Patrick⁵⁶, Vince Calhoun⁵⁷, Mulin Jun Li⁵⁸, Meng Liang⁵⁹, Peng Gong^{3

60}, Edward D Barker⁵¹, Nicholas Clinton⁶¹, Andre Marquand⁶², Le Yu³, Chunshui Yu^{63

64}, Gunter Schumann^{65

66}; CHIMGEN; IMAGEN Consortia

Affiliations

¹ Department of Radiology and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin, P. R. China.
² Centre for Population Neuroscience and Precision Medicine (PONS), Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, SGDP Centre, King's College London, London, UK.
³ Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, P. R. China.
⁴ College of Information Engineering, Tianjin University of Commerce, Tianjin, P. R. China.
⁵ New Light Technologies Inc., Washington, DC, USA.
⁶ Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Ministry of Education-Key Laboratory of Computational Neuroscience and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science and Human Phenome Institute, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
⁸ Department of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China.
⁹ Department of Radiology, Zhengzhou University People's Hospital and Henan Provincial People's Hospital, Zhengzhou, China.
¹⁰ Department of Medical Imaging, Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, China.
¹¹ Department of Radiology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
¹² Department of Radiology, Drum Tower Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
¹³ Department of Radiology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.
¹⁴ Department of Medical Imaging, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China.
¹⁵ Department of Radiology, The First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China.
¹⁶ Department of Radiology, Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University, School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China.
¹⁷ Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.
¹⁸ Department of Radiology, Affliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, Guizhou, China.
¹⁹ Department of Radiology, Tianjin Huanhu Hospital, Tianjin, China.
²⁰ Functional and Molecular Imaging Key Lab of Shaanxi Province and Department of Radiology, Tangdu Hospital, Military Medical University of PLA Airforce (Fourth Military Medical University), Xi'an, China.
²¹ Department of Radiology, Hainan General Hospital, Haikou, China.
²² Department of Radiology, Beijing Tongren Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
²³ Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China.
²⁴ Department of Magnetic Resonance, Lanzhou University Second Hospital, Lanzhou, China.
²⁵ State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
²⁶ Department of Radiology, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan, China.
²⁷ Department of Radiology, Tianjin First Center Hospital, Tianjin, China.
²⁸ Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China.
²⁹ Department of Radiology, Pingjin Hospital, Logistics University of Chinese People's Armed Police Forces, Tianjin, China.
³⁰ Department of Radiology, Center for Medical Imaging, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
³¹ Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and School of Life Science, Division of Life Science and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
³² Department of Radiology, Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China.
³³ Department of Medical Imaging, Jinling Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
³⁴ Department of Radiology, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin, China.
³⁵ Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.
³⁶ Department of Neuroimaging, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
³⁷ Discipline of Psychiatry, School of Medicine and Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
³⁸ Department of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.
³⁹ Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany.
⁴⁰ NeuroSpin, CEA, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
⁴¹ Department of Psychiatry and Psychology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA.
⁴² Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
⁴³ Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Berlin, Germany.
⁴⁴ Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Berlin, Germany.
⁴⁵ Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay, Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Centre Borelli, INSERM U1299 "Trajectoires Développementales & Psychiatrie", Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
⁴⁶ Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, INSERM Unit 1000 Neuroimaging and Psychiatry, University Paris Sud, University Paris Descartes - Sorbonne Paris Cité; Psychiatry Department 91G16, Orsay Hospital, Orsay, France.
⁴⁷ Institute National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, UMR 992 INSERM, CEA, Faculté de médecine, Université Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay NeuroSpin, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
⁴⁸ Departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine and Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Sainte-Justine, University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
⁴⁹ Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
⁵⁰ Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Centre Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
⁵¹ Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
⁵² Department of Psychiatry and Neuroimaging Center, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
⁵³ School of Psychology and Global Brain Health Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
⁵⁴ Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy CCM, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany.
⁵⁵ Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
⁵⁶ Center for Wireless and Population Health Systems, Department of Family and Preventive Medicine and Calit2's Qualcomm Institute, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
⁵⁷ Tri-institutional Center for Translational Research in Neuroimaging and Data Science (TReNDS), Georgia State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
⁵⁸ Collaborative Innovation Center of Tianjin for Medical Epigenetics, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Medical Epigenetics, Department of Pharmacology, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, P. R. China.
⁵⁹ School of Medical Imaging and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, P. R. China.
⁶⁰ Department of Geography and Department of Earth Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
⁶¹ Google, Inc., Mountain View, CA, USA.
⁶² Predictive Clinical Neuroscience Group at the Donders Institute, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
⁶³ Department of Radiology and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin, P. R. China. chunshuiyu@tmu.edu.cn.
⁶⁴ CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, P. R. China. chunshuiyu@tmu.edu.cn.
⁶⁵ Centre for Population Neuroscience and Stratified Medicine (PONS), Institute for Science and Technology of Brain-Inspired Intelligence (ISTBI), Fudan University, Shanghai, P. R. China. gunter.schumann1961@gmail.com.
⁶⁶ Centre for Population Neuroscience and Stratified Medicine (PONS), Charite Mental Health, Dept. of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, CCM, Charite Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany. gunter.schumann1961@gmail.com.

PMID: 34711977
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-021-01204-7

Global urbanicity is associated with brain and behaviour in young people

Jiayuan Xu et al. Nat Hum Behav. 2022 Feb.

. 2022 Feb;6(2):279-293.

doi: 10.1038/s41562-021-01204-7. Epub 2021 Oct 28.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Radiology and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin, P. R. China.
² Centre for Population Neuroscience and Precision Medicine (PONS), Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, SGDP Centre, King's College London, London, UK.
³ Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, P. R. China.
⁴ College of Information Engineering, Tianjin University of Commerce, Tianjin, P. R. China.
⁵ New Light Technologies Inc., Washington, DC, USA.
⁶ Institute of Science and Technology for Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Ministry of Education-Key Laboratory of Computational Neuroscience and Brain-Inspired Intelligence, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Medical Neurobiology and MOE Frontiers Center for Brain Science, Institutes of Brain Science and Human Phenome Institute, Fudan University, Shanghai, China.
⁸ Department of Magnetic Resonance Imaging, First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou, China.
⁹ Department of Radiology, Zhengzhou University People's Hospital and Henan Provincial People's Hospital, Zhengzhou, China.
¹⁰ Department of Medical Imaging, Second Hospital of Hebei Medical University, Shijiazhuang, China.
¹¹ Department of Radiology, Tongji Hospital, Tongji Medical College, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China.
¹² Department of Radiology, Drum Tower Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
¹³ Department of Radiology, Xiangya Hospital, Central South University, Changsha, China.
¹⁴ Department of Medical Imaging, First Affiliated Hospital of Guangzhou University of Chinese Medicine, Guangzhou, China.
¹⁵ Department of Radiology, The First Hospital of Shanxi Medical University, Taiyuan, China.
¹⁶ Department of Radiology, Second Affiliated Hospital of Zhejiang University, School of Medicine, Hangzhou, China.
¹⁷ Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, Hefei, China.
¹⁸ Department of Radiology, Affliated Hospital of Guizhou Medical University, Guiyang, Guizhou, China.
¹⁹ Department of Radiology, Tianjin Huanhu Hospital, Tianjin, China.
²⁰ Functional and Molecular Imaging Key Lab of Shaanxi Province and Department of Radiology, Tangdu Hospital, Military Medical University of PLA Airforce (Fourth Military Medical University), Xi'an, China.
²¹ Department of Radiology, Hainan General Hospital, Haikou, China.
²² Department of Radiology, Beijing Tongren Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China.
²³ Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Wenzhou Medical University, Wenzhou, China.
²⁴ Department of Magnetic Resonance, Lanzhou University Second Hospital, Lanzhou, China.
²⁵ State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China.
²⁶ Department of Radiology, Qilu Hospital of Shandong University, Jinan, China.
²⁷ Department of Radiology, Tianjin First Center Hospital, Tianjin, China.
²⁸ Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China.
²⁹ Department of Radiology, Pingjin Hospital, Logistics University of Chinese People's Armed Police Forces, Tianjin, China.
³⁰ Department of Radiology, Center for Medical Imaging, West China Hospital of Sichuan University, Chengdu, China.
³¹ Department of Radiology, First Affiliated Hospital of USTC, Hefei National Laboratory for Physical Sciences at the Microscale and School of Life Science, Division of Life Science and Medicine, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China.
³² Department of Radiology, Affiliated Hospital of Xuzhou Medical University, Xuzhou, China.
³³ Department of Medical Imaging, Jinling Hospital, Medical School of Nanjing University, Nanjing, China.
³⁴ Department of Radiology, Tianjin Medical University Cancer Institute and Hospital, Tianjin, China.
³⁵ Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.
³⁶ Department of Neuroimaging, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
³⁷ Discipline of Psychiatry, School of Medicine and Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
³⁸ Department of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience, Central Institute of Mental Health, Medical Faculty Mannheim, Heidelberg University, Mannheim, Germany.
³⁹ Department of Psychology, School of Social Sciences, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany.
⁴⁰ NeuroSpin, CEA, Université Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
⁴¹ Department of Psychiatry and Psychology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA.
⁴² Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, UK.
⁴³ Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health, Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, Berlin, Germany.
⁴⁴ Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt (PTB), Berlin, Germany.
⁴⁵ Ecole Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay, Université Paris-Saclay, CNRS, Centre Borelli, INSERM U1299 "Trajectoires Développementales & Psychiatrie", Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
⁴⁶ Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, INSERM Unit 1000 Neuroimaging and Psychiatry, University Paris Sud, University Paris Descartes - Sorbonne Paris Cité; Psychiatry Department 91G16, Orsay Hospital, Orsay, France.
⁴⁷ Institute National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale, UMR 992 INSERM, CEA, Faculté de médecine, Université Paris-Sud, Université Paris-Saclay NeuroSpin, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
⁴⁸ Departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience, Faculty of Medicine and Centre Hospitalier Universitaire Sainte-Justine, University of Montreal, Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
⁴⁹ Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
⁵⁰ Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, University Medical Centre Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
⁵¹ Department of Psychology, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London, London, UK.
⁵² Department of Psychiatry and Neuroimaging Center, Technische Universität Dresden, Dresden, Germany.
⁵³ School of Psychology and Global Brain Health Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland.
⁵⁴ Department of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy CCM, Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Corporate Member of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Berlin Institute of Health, Berlin, Germany.
⁵⁵ Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
⁵⁶ Center for Wireless and Population Health Systems, Department of Family and Preventive Medicine and Calit2's Qualcomm Institute, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
⁵⁷ Tri-institutional Center for Translational Research in Neuroimaging and Data Science (TReNDS), Georgia State University, Georgia Institute of Technology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.
⁵⁸ Collaborative Innovation Center of Tianjin for Medical Epigenetics, Tianjin Key Laboratory of Medical Epigenetics, Department of Pharmacology, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, P. R. China.
⁵⁹ School of Medical Imaging and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, P. R. China.
⁶⁰ Department of Geography and Department of Earth Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China.
⁶¹ Google, Inc., Mountain View, CA, USA.
⁶² Predictive Clinical Neuroscience Group at the Donders Institute, Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands.
⁶³ Department of Radiology and Tianjin Key Laboratory of Functional Imaging, Tianjin Medical University General Hospital, Tianjin, P. R. China. chunshuiyu@tmu.edu.cn.
⁶⁴ CAS Center for Excellence in Brain Science and Intelligence Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, P. R. China. chunshuiyu@tmu.edu.cn.
⁶⁵ Centre for Population Neuroscience and Stratified Medicine (PONS), Institute for Science and Technology of Brain-Inspired Intelligence (ISTBI), Fudan University, Shanghai, P. R. China. gunter.schumann1961@gmail.com.
⁶⁶ Centre for Population Neuroscience and Stratified Medicine (PONS), Charite Mental Health, Dept. of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy, CCM, Charite Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Berlin, Germany. gunter.schumann1961@gmail.com.

PMID: 34711977
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-021-01204-7

Abstract

Urbanicity is a growing environmental challenge for mental health. Here, we investigate correlations of urbanicity with brain structure and function, neuropsychology and mental illness symptoms in young people from China and Europe (total n = 3,867). We developed a remote-sensing satellite measure (UrbanSat) to quantify population density at any point on Earth. UrbanSat estimates of urbanicity were correlated with brain volume, cortical surface area and brain network connectivity in the medial prefrontal cortex and cerebellum. UrbanSat was also associated with perspective-taking and depression symptoms, and this was mediated by neural variables. Urbanicity effects were greatest when urban exposure occurred in childhood for the cerebellum, and from childhood to adolescence for the prefrontal cortex. As UrbanSat can be generalized to different geographies, it may enable assessments of correlations of urbanicity with mental illness and resilience globally.

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References

1. Prince, M. et al. No health without mental health. Lancet 370, 859–877 (2007). - PubMed - DOI
1. van Os, J., Kenis, G. & Rutten, B. P. The environment and schizophrenia. Nature 468, 203 (2010). - PubMed - DOI
1. Bick, J. & Nelson, C. A. Early adverse experiences and the developing brain. Neuropsychopharmacology 41, 177 (2016). - PubMed - DOI
1. Bhugra, D., Ventriglio, A., Castaldelli-Maia, J., & McCay, L. Urban Mental Health (Oxford Univ. Press, 2019).
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Global urbanicity is associated with brain and behaviour in young people

Affiliations

Global urbanicity is associated with brain and behaviour in young people

Authors

Affiliations

Abstract

References

Publication types

MeSH terms

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LinkOut - more resources

Full Text Sources

Research Materials