Human Genetics Publications and Presentations
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
7-16-2025
Abstract
Background: The macro-social and environmental conditions in which people live, such as the level of a country’s development or inequality, are associated with brain-related disorders. However, the relationship between these systemic environmental factors and the brain remains unclear. We here aimed to determine the association between the level of development and inequality of a country and the brain structure of healthy adults.
Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study pooling brain imaging (T1-based) data from 145 magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies in 7,962 healthy adults (4,110 women) in 29 different countries. We used a meta-regression approach to relate the brain structure with the country’s level of development and inequality.
Results: Higher human development was consistently associated with larger hippocampi and more expanded global cortical surface area, particularly in frontal areas. Increased inequality was most consistently associated with smaller hippocampal volume and thinner cortical thickness across the brain.
Conclusions: Our results suggest that the macro-economic conditions of a country are reflected in its inhabitants’ brains and may explain the different incidence of brain disorders across the world. The observed variability of brain structure in health across countries should be considered when developing tools in the field of personalized or precision medicine that are intended to be used across the world
Recommended Citation
Medel, V., Alliende, L. M., Bethlehem, R., Seidlitz, J., Ringlein, G., Arango, C., ... & Crossley, N. A. (2025). Human development, inequality, and their associations with brain structure across 29 countries. European Psychiatry, 68(1), e100. https://doi.org/10.1192/j.eurpsy.2025.10060
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Publication Title
European psychiatry
DOI
10.1192/j.eurpsy.2025.10060
Comments
© The Author(s), 2025. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge University Press must be obtained for commercial re-use or in order to create a derivative work.