Chronic inflammation has been associated with adverse outcomes in linear growth and cognitive development. The early release of cytokines shapes the nature of inflammatory responses, either beneficially or detrimentally. The contribution of cumulative, long term inflammatory exposure on later cognitive outcomes remains less clear.
In this paper we examine the association between early childhood inflammatory exposure and cognitive outcomes in a cohort of low-income children living in Bangladesh. Infants were enrolled at birth and followed prospectively. Cytokines and cognitive measures were collected at regular intervals, up to age 7 years.
Longitudinal associations between cytokines and IQ were analyzed with autoregressive cross lagged models. Factor analysis supported two groups of cytokines involved in viral and injury response (Factor 1) and type-2 immunity (Factor 2). Cytokine factors at 26, 36 and 60 months were modeled with full-scale IQ scores at 48, 60, and 84 months.
Higher Factor 1 cytokines at 36 months were significantly associated with lower cognitive scores at 60 months. We present initial data suggesting that subsets of inflammatory cytokines may covary in early childhood. A better understanding of immune and inflammatory correlates of long-term neurodevelopment outcomes may enable prognostication and targeted therapies for developmental delay in at risk groups.
We thank the families who participated in this study. The original data collection received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation (Fund #79704, "Brain Imaging as a Measure of Future Cognitive Outcomes"). The present secondary analysis was supported by the Boston Children’s Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics Fellowship Training Program.
There was no external funding for the secondary analysis. Fahmida Tofail and Charles A. Nelson have contributed equally to this work as senior authors.
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