BACKGROUND: The BREATHE (brain development and air pollution ultrafine particles in school children) project aims to discover the effects of urban air pollution on neuropsychological development. Aims: We aimed to study the relationships between the different neuropsychological measures of the BREATHE project.
METHODS: A follow-up with four repeated evaluations of the cognitive performance in children aged from 7 to 9 years at baseline has being conducted during the period from January 2012 to March 2013. We evaluated 2.735 children using two different computerized paradigms: n-back task (to assess working memory) and attentional network task (ANT) (to assess attentional networks). Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) symptomatology (DSM-IV) and school achievement of children were reported by teachers. Parents filled in the Strenghts and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ). Parental sociodemographic variables were also collected by questionnaire. We analyzed the bivariate associations between outcomes and ADHD, SDQ and some covariates. Furthermore, the relationships between all the neuropsychological variables were studied using Bayesian Networks.
RESULTS: We observed that those children with higher ADHD symptomatology, higher behavioral problems (SDQ) and lower school achievement performed significantly worse the n-back task. We also observed four main paths in the DAG analyzing the interdependencies between variables: ADHD, behavioral problems (SDQ) and two paths for n-back scores. All of these paths showed dependence with maternal education and school achievement subsequently.
CONCLUSIONS: These preliminary results indicate that n-back scores seem to be more sensitive than ANT scores to some important variables such as child’s age, maternal education, ADHD symptomatology and behavioral problems. However, n-back score distributions are independent from those variables assessing ADHD symptomatology and behavioral problems.
