Evidence of brain network aberration in healthy subjects with urban upbringing – A multimodal DTI and VBM study

Abstract

City living represents not only the allegory of modern life, but also – due to attractive living conditions, employment and infrastructure – a crucial reality for a growing portion of the global society. Regarding the remarkable increase of the schizophrenia incidence in individuals exposed to an urban environment during upbringing the understanding of responsible pathogenetic mechanisms is important. Schizophrenia has been conceptualized as a disorder of brain dysconnectivity. We investigated the association between urban upbringing and gray matter as well as white matter in a large sample of healthy subjects (n = 290). Voxelwise analyses revealed a strong inverse correlation of early life urbanicity and gray matter volume of the bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortices (DLPFC) and the right inferior parietal lobe (IPL) as well as the white matter characteristics in the left superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF). A positive correlation was found for the gray matter volume of the left precuneus. These results may point to an altered brain development associated with urban upbringing, which not only affects single brain regions but a fronto-parietal network. Considering a DLPFC susceptibility to stress, our findings support the hypothesis of the pathogenetic role of social stress in an urban environment.