The Generation R Study: design and cohort update 2012

PurposeTo generate percentile curves of axial length (AL) for European children, which can be used to estimate the risk of myopia in adulthood.MethodsA total of 12 386 participants from the population‐based studies Generation R (Dutch children measured at both 6 and 9 years of age; N = 6934), the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) (British children 15 years of age; N = 2495) and the Rotterdam Study III (RS‐III) (Dutch adults 57 years of age; N = 2957) contributed to this study. Axial length (AL) and corneal curvature data were available for all participants; objective cycloplegic refractive error was available only for the Dutch participants. We calculated a percentile score for each Dutch child at 6 and 9 years of age.ResultsMean (SD) AL was 22.36 (0.75) mm at 6 years, 23.10 (0.84) mm at 9 years, 23.41 (0.86) mm at 15 years and 23.67 (1.26) at adulthood. Axial length (AL) differences after the age of 15 occurred only in the upper 50%, with the highest difference within the 95th percentile and above. A total of 354 children showed accelerated axial growth and increased by more than 10 percentiles from age 6 to 9 years; 162 of these children (45.8%) were myopic at 9 years of age, compared to 4.8% (85/1781) for the children whose AL did not increase by more than 10 percentiles.ConclusionThis study provides normative values for AL that can be used to monitor eye growth in European children. These results can help clinicians detect excessive eye growth at an early age, thereby facilitating decision‐making with respect to interventions for preventing and/or controlling myopia.

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“…The complete methodology for this study has been described elsewhere (Jaddoe et al. 2012; Kruithof et al. 2014).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Axial length growth and the risk of developing myopia in European children

Tideman

Polling

Vingerling

et al. 2017

Acta Ophthalmologica

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203

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“…The participants of this study included a subgroup of children participating in the Generation R Study, which is a large, population‐based prenatal cohort study in Rotterdam, the Netherlands (Jaddoe et al., 2012). Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans were obtained in a total of 1,070 children between 6 and 10 years of age.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Differential patterns of age‐related cortical and subcortical functional connectivity in 6‐to‐10 year old children: A connectome‐wide association study

et al. 2018

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IntroductionTypical brain development is characterized by specific patterns of maturation of functional networks. Cortico‐cortical connectivity generally increases, whereas subcortico‐cortical connections often decrease. Little is known about connectivity changes amongst different subcortical regions in typical development.MethodsThis study examined age‐ and gender‐related differences in functional connectivity between and within cortical and subcortical regions using two different approaches. The participants included 411 six‐ to ten‐year‐old typically developing children sampled from the population‐based Generation R study. Functional connectomes were defined in native space using regions of interest from subject‐specific FreeSurfer segmentations. Connections were defined as: (a) the correlation between regional mean time‐series; and (b) the focal maximum of voxel‐wise correlations within FreeSurfer regions. The association of age and gender with each functional connection was determined using linear regression. The preprocessing included the exclusion of children with excessive head motion and scrubbing to reduce the influence of minor head motion during scanning.ResultsCortico‐cortical associations echoed previous findings that connectivity shifts from short to long‐range with age. Subcortico‐cortical associations with age were primarily negative in the focal network approach but were both positive and negative in the mean time‐series network approach. Between subcortical regions, age‐related associations were negative in both network approaches. Few connections had significant associations with gender.ConclusionsThe present study replicates previously reported age‐related patterns of connectivity in a relatively narrow age‐range of children. In addition, we extended these findings by demonstrating decreased connectivity within the subcortex with increasing age. Lastly, we show the utility of a more focal approach that challenges the spatial assumptions made by the traditional mean time series approach.

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“…The design has been described previously (Jaddoe et al, 2010) and was approved by the Medical Ethics Committee of the Erasmus Medical Center. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants.…”

Section: Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prenatal Tobacco Exposure and Brain Morphology: A Prospective Study in Young Children

Marroun

Schmidt

Franken

et al. 2013

Neuropsychopharmacol

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103

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It is well known that smoking during pregnancy can affect offspring health. Prenatal tobacco exposure has been associated with negative behavioral and cognitive outcomes in childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. These associations between prenatal tobacco exposure and psychopathology in offspring could possibly be explained by the influence of prenatal tobacco exposure on brain development. In this prospective study, we investigated the association between prenatal tobacco exposure, behavioral and emotional functioning and brain morphology in young children. On the basis of age and gender, we matched 113 children prenatally exposed to tobacco with 113 unexposed controls. These children were part of a population-based study in the Netherlands, the Generation R Study, and were followed from pregnancy onward. Behavioral and emotional functioning was assessed at age 6 with the Child Behavior Checklist. We assessed brain morphology using magnetic resonance imaging techniques in children aged 6-8 years. Children exposed to tobacco throughout pregnancy have smaller total brain volumes and smaller cortical gray matter volumes. Continued prenatal tobacco exposure was associated with cortical thinning, primarily in the superior frontal, superior parietal, and precentral cortices. These children also demonstrated increased scores of affective problems. In addition, thickness of the precentral and superior frontal cortices was associated with affective problems. Importantly, brain development in offspring of mothers who quit smoking during pregnancy resembled that of nonexposed controls (no smaller brain volumes and no thinning of the cortex). Our findings suggest an association between continued prenatal tobacco exposure and brain structure and function in school-aged children.

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The Generation R Study: design and cohort update 2012

Cited by 509 publications

References 289 publications

Axial length growth and the risk of developing myopia in European children

Axial length growth and the risk of developing myopia in European children

Differential patterns of age‐related cortical and subcortical functional connectivity in 6‐to‐10 year old children: A connectome‐wide association study

Prenatal Tobacco Exposure and Brain Morphology: A Prospective Study in Young Children

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