Title:                Early life exposure to metal mixtures, neuroimaging and neurodevelopment

 Speaker:     Megan K. Horton, PhD MPH, Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health - Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

Date:             Wednesday February 13, 2019

Time:               12PM - 1PM

Location:      CAM Building, 17 East 102nd Street - West Tower Elevator 5th Floor, D5-122

 Short Bio:    

Dr. Horton is an environmental epidemiologist in the Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. She trained as an environmental health scientist, focusing on environmental and biological markers of exposure during pregnancy and early childhood, at Columbia University. In her postdoctoral training, she studied the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as a tool to explore mechanisms linking environmental exposures with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes. Since joining Mount Sinai in 2013, her main research questions address associations between early life exposure to environmental toxicants (i.e., heavy metals, flame retardants, pesticides) and neurodevelopmental outcomes in children. She received an NIH funded career transition award to study complex mixtures of environmental toxicants and was recently awarded a grant to introduce MRI into the ongoing PROGRESS cohort study.

 Abstract: 

This seminar will discuss two recent developments in the field of children’s environmental health and novel research combining these developments to address the link between early life exposure to heavy metals and behavioral outcomes in children. I will begin with an introduction to the use of naturally shed deciduous “baby” teeth as retrospective, objective biomarkers of environmental exposures (i.e., heavy metals) during pregnancy and early childhood.  Next, I will describe the growing use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in studies of children exposed to environmental toxicants. I will highlight the utility of these developments using examples from our ongoing prospective birth cohort study in Mexico City (PROGRESS) and other international studies. The goal of this seminar is to understand the application of new methodologies and how they provide insight into the link between early life exposure to environmental toxicants and children’s neurodevelopmental health.

 If you need more information please contact:

maud.dupuy@mssm.edu

*Light lunch will be provided