Mapping the Health Burden of Neighbourhood Deprivation: Neurobiological Evidence Across the Life Span
- 1University of Cambridge
Abstract
Neighbourhood deprivation is one of the few potential policy-modifiable risk factors for psychiatric and neurological disorders, but the neurobiological pathways underlying these associations remain unclear. We investigated these relationships across three cohorts spanning the life span: the Healthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study (n = 84, aged 0-4 weeks postnatal), the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study (n = 4,792, aged 9-10 years), and the UK Biobank (UKB; [~] 500,000 adults, aged 44-87 years). Neighbourhood deprivation was associated with elevated disease risk, and individual lifestyle factors accounted for only a small fraction of this burden, indicating that the much larger residual effect reflects broader contextual characteristics of deprived environments rather than individual behaviours alone. Across all cohorts, greater deprivation consistently predicted lower cortical and subcortical brain volume, with effects detectable in early development and substantially stronger in adulthood. Across disorders, regional brain volume emerged as a consistent neuroanatomical mediator linking neighbourhood deprivation to neuropsychiatric disease. We further showed that deprivation preferentially affects brain regions intrinsically vulnerable to neuropsychiatric disorders. Spatial decoding analyses implicated dopaminergic and serotonergic neurotransmitter systems together with specific excitatory and inhibitory neuronal classes. Importantly, both the deprivation-disease associations and their neuroanatomical mediation patterns replicated across independent populations. Our study delivers a translational framework linking neighbourhood deprivation to brain health which could inform public health policies and preventive interventions.
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BibTeX
@misc{ebneabbasi2026mapping,
title = {{Mapping the Health Burden of Neighbourhood Deprivation: Neurobiological Evidence Across the Life Span}},
author = {A. Ebneabbasi and V. Warrier and M. Montagnese and R. Romero Garcia and R. A. I. Bethlehem and T. Rittman},
howpublished = {medRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = aug,
doi = {10.64898/2026.08.29.26361714},
url = {https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.29.26361714v1},
note = {CC BY-NC-ND},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Mapping the Health Burden of Neighbourhood Deprivation: Neurobiological Evidence Across the Life Span
AU - A. Ebneabbasi
AU - V. Warrier
AU - M. Montagnese
AU - R. Romero Garcia
AU - R. A. I. Bethlehem
AU - T. Rittman
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/08/29
PB - medRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.08.29.26361714
UR - https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.08.29.26361714v1
AB - Neighbourhood deprivation is one of the few potential policy-modifiable risk factors for psychiatric and neurological disorders, but the neurobiological pathways underlying these associations remain unclear. We investigated these relationships across three cohorts spanning the life span: the Healthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study (n = 84, aged 0-4 weeks postnatal), the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study (n = 4,792, aged 9-10 years), and the UK Biobank (UKB; [~] 500,000 adults, aged 44-87 years). Neighbourhood deprivation was associated with elevated disease risk, and individual lifestyle factors accounted for only a small fraction of this burden, indicating that the much larger residual effect reflects broader contextual characteristics of deprived environments rather than individual behaviours alone. Across all cohorts, greater deprivation consistently predicted lower cortical and subcortical brain volume, with effects detectable in early development and substantially stronger in adulthood. Across disorders, regional brain volume emerged as a consistent neuroanatomical mediator linking neighbourhood deprivation to neuropsychiatric disease. We further showed that deprivation preferentially affects brain regions intrinsically vulnerable to neuropsychiatric disorders. Spatial decoding analyses implicated dopaminergic and serotonergic neurotransmitter systems together with specific excitatory and inhibitory neuronal classes. Importantly, both the deprivation-disease associations and their neuroanatomical mediation patterns replicated across independent populations. Our study delivers a translational framework linking neighbourhood deprivation to brain health which could inform public health policies and preventive interventions.
ER -