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Enrolling by invitationNCT05368493Updated Aug 6, 2026

Air Pollution and Development in the Boricua Youth Study

An interventional study of MRI task in Pollution; Exposure and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, sponsored by New York State Psychiatric Institute. Enrolling by invitation at 2 sites in 2 countries. Open to participants aged 6 Months to 11 Years, including healthy volunteers. Per ClinicalTrials.gov, last updated 2026-08-06.

Sponsored by New York State Psychiatric Institute · Not applicable, Interventional, and Basic science

Phase
Not applicable
Study type
Interventional
Enrollment
182
Allocation
Not applicable
Ages
6 Months to 11 Years
Sex
All
01

Study summary

This study seeks to understand the relationship between prenatal maternal air pollution exposure and offspring risk for ADHD and examine two potential -modifiable- mechanisms: prenatal maternal inflammation and offspring sleep problems. We will employ a longitudinal neuroimaging study design and leverage a well-characterized intergenerational cohort of Puerto Ricans to address prior literature's limitations. This will be the first study to use infant neuroimaging to disassociate the effects of prenatal pollution exposure from those of postnatal pollution exposure, adversity and disadvantage, and offspring genetic risk for ADHD.

Read the detailed description

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The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Human Research Protections (OHRP) issued an FWA restriction on NYSPI research that also included a pause of human subjects research as of June 23, 2023.

02

Conditions studied

  • Pollution; Exposure
  • Neurodevelopmental Disorders
03

In context

Neurodevelopmental Disorders

352 studies on the registry are indexed under Neurodevelopmental Disorders; 141 are open to participants now.

This study's planned enrollment of 182 is above the median of 88 across 217 interventional studies indexed under Neurodevelopmental Disorders.

Browse Neurodevelopmental Disorders studies →

Lead sponsor

New York State Psychiatric Institute is the lead sponsor of 435 studies on the registry; 27 are open to participants now.

Of its 51 completed or terminated interventional studies of FDA-regulated products, 45 (88%) have results posted.

Counted across the registry records on this site, refreshed daily.

04

Who can participate

Ages eligible
6 Months to 11 Years
Sexes eligible
All
Accepts healthy volunteers
Yes

Go through the criteria one by one — yes, no or not sure — and take the list to your doctor or the study team. Kept in this browser only.

Inclusion criteria

  • Having been enrolled in the BYS-ECHO birth cohort (parent study).
  • Speaks English or Spanish.
  • Having a parent that is eligible to participate, based on criterial detailed below, and agrees to participation.
  • One parent must speak English or Spanish.

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Having serious neurological disorder, excluding ASD (e.g., seizure disorder).
  • MRI (irremovable metal in body like braces, pacemakers).
  • Claustrophobia.
  • Having a parent that is not competent to consent (e.g., severe intellectual disability would have triggered exclusion) or under 18 years of age.
Terms in these criteria, in plain language(1)

Underlined terms in the criteria open these too. Explained by clinicaltrials.gg, not part of the registry record. The study team decides who can take part.

Contraindication

A reason a treatment, test or procedure should not be given to a particular person, such as an allergy, another illness or a medicine they take.

05

Study design

Phase
Not applicable
Primary purpose
Basic science
Allocation
Not applicable
Intervention model
Single group
Masking
None (open label)
Enrollment
182 participants (estimated)

Study arms

  • Other
    All participants

    All participants will be in the same arm.

    Other: MRI task

Interventions

  • OtherMRI task

    Task fMRI (Simon) \[ Time Frame: Children will undergo MRI scans when they are 6-11 years of age. \] Children will also complete a task, which will allow exploratory analyses of the functionality of attention-related neural circuits. The Simon fMRI task is a non-verbal task equivalent to the Stroop that tests sustained attention and inhibitory control and discriminates children with and without ADHD. Exploratory fMRI time-series data for each participant will be modeled using a general linear model with 3 predictors: congruent correct, incongruent correct, and incorrect. Contrast images for each participant (e.g., incongruent-minus-congruent) will be generated and entered into a group-level random-effects model. Analyses are exploratory, and will focus on frontal lobe activity during each type of trial.

06

What researchers measure

Primary outcomes

  1. Frontal lobe and corpus callosum volumes

    Frontal lobe and corpus callosum volumes in will be measure in offspring. Bilateral middle frontal cortex and corpus callosum volumes will be used in hypothesis testing.

    Time frame: Children will be scanned either at 6-36 months or 6-11 years of age, depending on when the participants are enrolled.

Other outcomes

  1. Exploratory- Task fMRI (Simon)

    Children will also complete a task, which will allow exploratory analyses of the functionality of attention-related neural circuits. The Simon fMRI task is a non-verbal task equivalent to the Stroop that tests sustained attention and inhibitory control and discriminates children with and without ADHD. Exploratory fMRI time-series data for each participant will be modeled using a general linear model with 3 predictors: congruent correct, incongruent correct, and incorrect. Contrast images for each participant (e.g., incongruent-minus-congruent) will be generated and entered into a group-level random-effects model. Analyses are exploratory, and will focus on frontal lobe activity during each type of trial.

    Time frame: Children will undergo MRI scans when they are 6-11 years of age.

07

Study locations

2 sites
08

References and documents

Individual participant data

Plan to share: Undecided — De-identified participant level data will be shared as required by NIH's 2003 Data Sharing Policy. The data sharing plan and elements are still being determined.

No publications or documents are linked to this record.

09

Timeline

Tracking since Sep 25, 2026
ElapsedEstimatedEstimated, not yet reachedSimilar studies: half by the dot; the band is the middle halfHalf of similar studies reached it by the dot; the band is the middle half, from a quarter to three quarters

Started Jan 2023 (actual). Primary completion is estimated for Jun 2028, 64 months after the start.

Of 142 non-industry interventional studies with no phase under Neurodevelopmental Disorders, half reached primary completion within 30 months of starting (the median), counting those still running; a quarter within 15 and three quarters within 52. This study's planned 64 months is above that.

Counting every sponsor, half of 148 studies reached it within 30 months; a quarter within 15 and three quarters within 52.

How these figures are worked out, and which studies are left out of them.

Registered
May 5, 2022
First posted
May 10, 2022
StartActual
Jan 23, 2023
Primary completionEst.
Jun 1, 2028
CompletionEst.
Jun 1, 2028
Last update
Aug 6, 2026
What these dates mean
Start.
When the first participant enrolled; while estimated, when the study expects to open to recruitment.
Primary completion.
When the last participant was examined or treated to collect data for the study's main question, its primary outcome. A study that stopped early gives the date its data collection stopped.
Completion.
When the last participant's last visit took place, for every outcome, secondary ones and side effects included: the end of the study. Often later than primary completion, sometimes the same day.
Actual and Est.
Actual means the registry says the date has happened. Est. (estimated) is a date the sponsor plans or expects. It can still move, and the sponsor is expected to change it to actual once it has passed.
No changes since tracking began. The registry record was last updated on Aug 6, 2026, before this site started recording changes on Sep 25, 2026. Its history is on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗
10

Registry details

Key details

Study ID
NCT05368493
Collaborators
University of Puerto Rico, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS)
Responsible party
Claudia Lugo-Candelas (Assistant Professor, New York State Psychiatric Institute) — Principal investigator
First posted
May 10, 2022
Start date
Jan 23, 2023
Primary completion
Jun 1, 2028 (estimated)
Completion
Jun 1, 2028 (estimated)
Last update
Aug 6, 2026

Study contacts

Claudia I Lugo-Candelas, PhD
principal investigator · Columbia University Irving Medical Center/New York State Psychiatric institute
Ligia Chavez, PhD
principal investigator · University of Puerto Rico
Cristiane S Duarte, PhD
principal investigator · Columbia University Irving Medical Center/New York State Psychiatric institute

Oversight

Data monitoring committee
No
FDA-regulated drug
No
FDA-regulated device
No
View the source record on ClinicalTrials.gov ↗

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No contact was published for this record. The registry link below has the sponsor’s details.

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