Traffic and Allied Air Pollution Exposure in Relation to Early Child Neurodevelopment

This talk will describe the results of a multidisciplinary evaluation of associations of traffic-related air pollution to childhood autism risk. Because the neuropathological origins of autism likely occur in the prenatal and early postnatal period, an etiologic role is plausible, and findings from this study constitute evidence that inhaled toxins in traffic-related pollution may act on pathways that disrupt brain development and function to produce a clinically diagnosed behavioral disorder.