138: Social exposome and brain health outcomes of dementia across Latin America

️ Episode 138: Social exposome and brain health outcomes of dementia across Latin America In this episode of PaperCast Base by Base, we explore how a multidimensional social exposome across the lifespan—covering education, food insecurity, financial status, assets, access to healthcare, childhood labor, subjective socioeconomic status, childhood experiences, traumatic events, and relationships—relates to brain health and dementia outcomes in Latin America. The study analyzes 2,211 participants from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru, spanning healthy controls, Alzheimer’s disease, and frontotemporal lobar degeneration. Study Highlights:Researchers built a global multidimensional social exposome score using expert criteria, confirmatory factor analysis, and structural equation modeling, then evaluated its association with cognition, functional ability, neuropsychiatric symptoms, gray‑matter volume, and resting‑state connectivity. More adverse exposomes tracked with poorer cognition in healthy aging and with lower cognitive and functional performance plus higher neuropsychiatric symptoms in Alzheimer’s disease and frontotemporal lobar degeneration. The combined exposome measure outperformed single factors such as education or socioeconomic status proxies when predicting clinical–cognitive profiles. Brain analyses linked adverse exposomes to atrophy in frontal–temporo–limbic and cerebellar regions and to altered frontotemporal and limbic connectivity, suggesting cumulative social adversity burdens relevant neural systems. Conclusion:Integrating a multidimensional social exposome into dementia prevention and care can sharpen risk profiling and guide interventions that target social disparities across the lifespan. Reference:Migeot J, Pina‑Escudero SD, Hernandez H, Gonzalez‑Gomez R, Legaz A, Fittipaldi S, Resende E de PF, Duran‑Aniotz C, Avila‑Funes JA, Behrens MI, Bruno MA, Cardona JF, Custodio N, García AM, Godoy ME, Hu K, Lanata S, Lawlor B, Lopera F, Maito MA, Matallana DL, Miller B, Miranda JJ, Okada de Oliveira M, Reyes P, Santamaria‑Garcia H, Slachevsky A, Sosa AL, Takada LT, Torres JM, Vanneste S, Valcour V, Wen O, Yokoyama JS, Possin KL, Ibanez A. Social exposome and brain health outcomes of dementia across Latin America. Nature Communications. 2025;16:8196. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-63277-6 License:This episode is based on an open-access article published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0) – https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Support:If you'd like to support Base by Base, you can make a one-time or monthly donation here: https://basebybase.castos.com/   On PaperCast Base by Base you’ll discover the latest in genomics, functional genomics, structural genomics, and proteomics.

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