Neural Exposome Factors that Affect Brain Health and Neurological Disorders

Post Date: December 2, 2025

Expiration Date: December 2, 2026

Human genetics has provided unprecedented insight into the etiologies of inherited neurological diseases. However, most neurological disorders cannot be explained by genetics alone. There is a need to understand the interaction between genetic and nonheritable factors as they contribute to neurological health and disease. The Neural Exposome is the integrated compilation of all physical, chemical, biological, and psychosocial influences that affect brain health and disease. These can be broadly classified into exogenous, endogenous, and behavioral categories, reflective of their source of origin in relation to the body. Examples of these categories include, but are not limited to, chemical and biological toxins, excessive temperature, light and noise, the microbiome, metabolites, epigenetic modifications of genes, pre-existing conditions, sleep, stress, diet, and drug and alcohol use.

Exposure to these factors may occur anytime from in utero to late in life. The effects of exposures likely accumulate across the lifespan and there may be life stages where individuals are critically sensitive to exposures. Moreover, exposome factors are a complex mixture of factors that nonlinearly interact to impact the nervous system. Of note, a large proportion of exposome factors are modifiable risk factors of neurological disorders, potentially opening a two-pronged approach to mitigating chronic neurological disease – by targeting compromised mechanisms as well as reducing exposures. A better understanding of how the multifactorial exposome is experienced across the lifespan and interacts with genetic expression is needed to evaluate the synergistic or composite interactions of multiple exposome factors. This research may enable the development of interventions to mitigate and prevent neurological disease.

Area of interest include, but are not limited to:

• Mechanistic studies exploring the tie between epidemiological risk associations and causal drivers of neurologic disease.
• Epidemiological studies to identify multiple exposome factors and their composite impact on neurological health and disease.
• Studies that leverage and expand longitudinal cohorts to incorporate exposome data that contribute to neurological health outcomes.
• Studies that validate the composite neurological impact of multiple exposome factors and reveal the underlying mechanisms of gene-environment interaction that promote neuropathology.
• Development of novel, human-relevant model systems including in vivo models, in vitro models, organoids, and/or computational models for neural exposome research.
• Development and validation of biomarkers of effects of exposome factors on the nervous system.

Neural exposome research is transdisciplinary and will require building teams with complementary expertise in neuroscience and other disciplines as needed. It is also crucial to support training and recruitment of neural exposome researchers.