Prenatal Exposure to Chemical Mixtures and Inhibition among Adolescents

Inhibition, one of the building blocks of executive function, is the ability to focus one’s attention despite interference from external stimuli. It undergoes substantial development during adolescence and may be susceptible to adverse impacts of prenatal exposure to chemical mixtures, yet few studies have explored this association. The New Bedford Cohort (NBC) is a birth cohort of residents living near the New Bedford Harbor Superfund site in Massachusetts. Among adolescents from the NBC, we investigated the association of biomarkers of prenatal exposure to organochlorines (DDE, HCB, PCBs) and metals (Pb, Mn) with inhibition, assessed with the Delis–Kaplan Executive Function System Design Fluency (non-verbal task) and Color–Word Interference (verbal task) subtests. An exploratory mixtures analysis using Bayesian kernel machine regression (BKMR) informed a traditional multivariable regression approach. NBC adolescents are diverse with 29% non-white and 31% in a low-income household at birth. Cord serum organochlorine concentrations and cord blood metals concentrations were generally similar to other birth cohorts. In BKMR models, we observed a suggestive adverse association of the chemical mixture with Color–Word Interference but not Design Fluency. In covariate-adjusted linear regression models including all five chemical exposure measures, a doubling of cord blood Mn was associated with poorer Color–Word Interference completion time scaled scores (difference = −0.74; 95% CI: −1.34, −0.14). This study provided evidence of an adverse joint association between prenatal exposure to a five-chemical mixture and verbal inhibition in adolescence with exposure to Mn potentially driving this overall association.