Publications by authors named "Marroun H"

Detecting errors and adapting behavior accordingly constitutes an integral aspect of cognition. Previous studies have linked neural correlates of error processing (e.g.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Prenatal exposure to alcohol (PAE) can impact short- and long-term offspring health. However, knowledge on PAE and brain development in early life is limited. This systematic review investigated associations between PAE and brain development during the first 1000 days of life, and was registered in PROSPERO at CRD42022355144.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Early childcare attendance may be related to children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms throughout childhood and young adolescence, however evidence from Europe is limited. We aimed to assess this association across multiple population-based birth cohorts of children recruited in different European countries.

Methods: Data come from six parent-offspring prospective birth cohort studies across five European countries within the EU Child Cohort Network.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A prominent challenge in understanding neural consequences of substance use involves disentangling predispositional risk factors from resulting consequences of substance use. Existing literature has identified pre-existing brain variations as vulnerability markers for substance use throughout adolescence. As early initiation of use is an important predictor for later substance use problems, we examined whether pre-existing brain variations are associated with early initiation of use.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Studies evaluating the benefits and risks of green spaces on children's health are scarce. The present study aimed to examine the associations between exposure to green spaces during pregnancy and early childhood with respiratory, cardiometabolic, and neurodevelopmental outcomes in school-age children. We performed an Individual-Participant Data (IPD) meta-analysis involving 35,000 children from ten European birth cohorts across eight countries.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Adaptations of the immune system throughout gestation have been proposed as important mechanisms regulating successful pregnancy. Dysregulation of the maternal immune system has been associated with adverse maternal and fetal outcomes. To translate findings from mechanistic preclinical studies to human pregnancies, studies of serum immune markers are the mainstay.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: Maternal vitamin D level is an important determinant of pregnancy and child health outcomes. Exposure to air pollution is suspected to increase the risk of vitamin D deficiency, but the evidence is scarce. We investigated the association between air pollution during pregnancy and maternal vitamin D levels.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objectives: To examine differences in behavior problems between children from intended versus unintended pregnancies, and to estimate how much the difference in problem behavior would be reduced if postnatal depression was eliminated and social support was increased within 6 months after birth.

Methods: Data from the Generation R Study were used, a population-based birth cohort in Rotterdam, the Netherlands (N = 9621). Differences in child internalizing and externalizing behavior at ages 1.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Introduction: Ambient air temperature may affect birth outcomes adversely, but little is known about their impact on foetal growth throughout pregnancy. We evaluated the association between temperature exposure during pregnancy and foetal size and growth in three European birth cohorts.

Methods: We studied 23,408 pregnant women from the English Born in Bradford cohort, Dutch Generation R Study, and Spanish INMA Project.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

The increased frequency of risk taking behavior combined with marked neuromaturation has positioned adolescence as a focal point of research into the neural causes and consequences of substance use. However, little work has provided a summary of the links between adolescent initiated substance use and longer-term brain outcomes. Here we review studies exploring the long-term effects of adolescent-initiated substance use with structural and microstructural neuroimaging.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Growing evidence suggests that urban environment may influence cognition and behavior in children, but the underlying pollutant and neurobiological mechanisms are unclear. We evaluated the association of built environment and urban natural space indicators during pregnancy and childhood with brain white matter microstructure in preadolescents, and examined the potential mediating role of air pollution and road-traffic noise. We used data of the Generation R Study, a population-based birth cohort in Rotterdam, the Netherlands (n = 2725; 2002-2006) for the primary analyses.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Urban environmental exposures associate with adult depression, but it is unclear whether they are associated to postpartum depression (PPD).

Objectives: We investigated associations between urban environment exposures during pregnancy and PPD.

Methods: We included women with singleton deliveries to liveborn children from 12 European birth cohorts (N with minimum one exposure = 30,772, analysis N range 17,686-30,716 depending on exposure; representing 26-46 % of the 66,825 eligible women).

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: During pregnancy, both selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) exposure and maternal depression have been associated with poor offspring neurodevelopmental outcomes. In a population-based cohort, we investigated the association between intrauterine exposure to SSRIs and depressive symptoms and offspring white matter development from childhood to adolescence.

Methods: Self-reported SSRI use was verified by pharmacy records.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Prior studies have reported conflicting results regarding the association of prenatal maternal depression with offspring cortisol levels. We examined associations of high levels of prenatal depressive symptoms with child cortisol biomarkers.

Methods: In Project Viva (n = 925, Massachusetts USA), mothers reported their depressive symptoms using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) during pregnancy, cord blood glucocorticoids were measured at delivery, and child hair cortisol levels were measured in mid-childhood (mean (SD) age: 7.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • The study investigates the impact of prenatal exposure to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and maternal depressive symptoms on brain development in children from mid-childhood to early puberty.
  • Conducted as part of the Generation R Study in Rotterdam, it analyzed data from pregnant individuals between April 2002 and January 2006, focusing on brain measurements in their children aged 7 to 15.
  • Results indicated that most brain gray matter volumes exhibited an inverted U-shaped growth pattern, highlighting potential effects of both SSRIs and maternal depression on child brain development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) is a worldwide public health concern. While PAE is known to be associated with low birth weight, little is known about timing and quantity of PAE on fetal growth. This study investigated the association between periconceptional and prenatal alcohol exposure and longitudinal fetal growth, focusing on timing and quantity in a high exposure cohort.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Maternal immune activation is a potential mechanism underlying associations between maternal stress during pregnancy and offspring mental health problems. This study examined associations between prenatal maternal stress, maternal inflammation during pregnancy, and children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms from 3 to 10 years of age, and whether maternal inflammation mediated the associations between prenatal maternal stress and children's internalizing and externalizing symptoms.

Methods: This study comprised 4,902 mother-child dyads in the Generation R study.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

A robust association has been reported between childhood adverse life events (ALEs) and risky substance use in adolescence. It remains unclear, however, what the impact of type and timing of these ALEs is. We investigated the association between ALEs and substance use in adolescents.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Objective: To study the contribution of socioeconomic status (SES) to the prevalence of psychological distress during pregnancy, and to investigate the association between psychological distress and maternal and perinatal health among different SES groups.

Methods: This study was embedded in the Generation R study. Multiple self-reported questionnaires were used to measure psychological distress.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background And Hypothesis: Previous studies have shown a robust relationship between childhood adversity and subsequent psychotic symptoms. However, the role of familial risk factors underlying this relationship remains largely unclear. Here, we tested whether offspring childhood adversity and postnatal maternal psychopathology mediated the relationship between maternal childhood adversity and offspring psychotic experiences.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Fetal tobacco exposure has persistent effects on growth and metabolism. The underlying mechanisms of these relationships are yet unknown. We investigated the associations of fetal exposure to maternal smoking with neonatal metabolite profiles.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Background: Unplanned or unintended pregnancies form a major public health concern because they are associated with unfavorable birth outcomes as well as social adversity, stress and depression among parents-to-be. Several risk factors for unplanned pregnancies in women have previously been identified, but studies usually take a unidimensional approach by focusing on only one or few factors, disregarding the possibility that predictors might cluster. Furthermore, data on predictors in men are largely overlooked.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF
Article Synopsis
  • Poor cardiovascular health during pregnancy is linked to negative brain development outcomes in children, particularly in terms of overall brain volume and white matter structure.
  • Research involving 2,797 mother-child pairs found that children of underweight mothers and those with inadequate gestational weight gain had smaller brain volumes compared to those with normal weight mothers.
  • The only lasting significant association was between higher maternal diastolic blood pressure and lower white matter quality in children, indicating a need for further research to confirm these results and understand the causal relationships.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF

Marginalized groups are often underrepresented in human developmental neuroscientific studies. This is problematic for the generalizability of findings about brain-behavior mechanisms, as well as for the validity, reliability, and reproducibility of results. In the present paper we discuss selection bias in cohort studies, which is known to contribute to the underrepresentation of marginalized groups.

View Article and Find Full Text PDF