Baby Teeth

Domain Overview

Beginning at the initial (baseline) appointment of ABCD, researchers collected naturally shed deciduous (“baby”) teeth from participants, the rationale, procedure, and analysis of which have been described in detail (Uban et al. (2018)). So far 448 teeth have been analyzed and details on this data are provided below. Accordingly, our goals were to analyze various environmental neurotoxicant exposures in a sample of these teeth via laser ablation–inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (LA-ICPMS). The data from 448 teeth are available in our file-based data.

Specifically, each tooth was subjected to laser ablation and microdissection techniques, leveraging the physiology of tooth development to provide time-resolved assessments of exposure starting during the 2nd trimester in utero. Deciduous teeth grow in incremental patterns, forming rings and layers that can be used to date deposition in much the same way as rings of a tree identify environmental conditions. Organic compounds and neurotoxicants circulating in the fetal blood stream are captured in the layers, such that the amounts in these layers provide information about the dose and timing of exposure. These methods have been extensively validated (Arora & Austin (2013), Arora et al. (2014), Arora et al. (2012), Arora et al. (2006), Hare et al. (2011), Johnston et al. (2019), Lin et al. (2025))

Key references:

Arora, M. & Austin, C. (2013). Current Opinion in Pediatrics, 25(2), 261–267. https://doi.org/10.1097/MOP.0b013e32835e9084
Arora & Austin (2013)
Arora, M., Austin, C., Sarrafpour, B., Hernández-Ávila, M., Hu, H., Wright, R. O., & Tellez-Rojo, M. M. (2014). PLoS ONE, 9(5), e97805. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0097805
Arora et al. (2014)
Arora, M., Bradman, A., Austin, C., Vedar, M., Holland, N., Eskenazi, B., & Smith, D. R. (2012). Environmental Science & Technology, 46(9), 5118–5125. https://doi.org/10.1021/es203569f
Arora et al. (2012)
Arora, M., Kennedy, B. J., Elhlou, S., Pearson, N. J., Walker, D. M., Bayl, P., & Chan, S. W. (2006). Science of The Total Environment, 371(1-3), 55–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2006.07.035
Arora et al. (2006)
Hare, D., Austin, C., Doble, P., & Arora, M. (2011). Journal of Dentistry, 39(5), 397–403. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdent.2011.03.004
Hare et al. (2011)
Johnston, J. E., Franklin, M., Roh, H., Austin, C., & Arora, M. (2019). Environmental Science & Technology, 53(10), 6000–6006. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.9b00429
Johnston et al. (2019)
Lin, P. D., Austin, C., Ong, Y. Y., Rifas-Shiman, S. L., Rahman, M. L., Arora, M., & Oken, E. (2025). Environmental Science & Technology, 59(29), 15027–15036. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5c05460
Lin et al. (2025)

File-based data

Exposure data

file-based concatenated

abcd
└── concatenated
    └── substudies
        └── baby_teeth
            └── baby_teeth.<csv|parquet>

Here, exposure levels are provided for 16 metals, per values of elemental isotopes: aluminum-27 (²⁷Al), barium-138 (¹³⁸Ba), cadmium-111 (¹¹¹Cd), calcium-43 (⁴³Ca), chromium-52 (⁵²Cr), cobalt-59 (⁵⁹Co), copper-63 (⁶³Cu), lead-208 (²⁰⁸Pb), lithium-7 (⁷Li), magnesium-25 (²⁵Mg), manganese-55 (⁵⁵Mn), molybdenum-95 (⁹⁵Mo), nickel-60 (⁶⁰Ni), strontium-88 (⁸⁸Sr), tin-118 (¹¹⁸Sn), and zinc-66 (⁶⁶Zn). All elemental values are background subtracted. Except for ⁴³Ca, all elemental values are normalized to calcium (Ca), which serves as an internal standard. All values, including ⁴³Ca, are corrected to NIST610. These values are reported by week-since-birth (WSB). Individual differences in the amount of WSBs with data are due to differences in tooth type (also provided in the data release) and sample integrity. Attrition refers to the estimated amount of tooth cusp worn away, and resorption refers to the amount of enamel resorbed at the cervical end; these values have been categorized into “low”, “medium”, and “high” levels.

File formats

The baby teeth file-based data are made available as both csv and parquet files to support a range of tools and user preferences. However, since the parquet format ensures that data is imported with correctly specified data types and facilitates faster loading speeds, we recommend using parquet files over csv files whenever possible (see here).

Metadata information

The metadata (data dictionary and categorical levels tables) for the baby teeth data are provided below. The Data Dictionary tab provides detailed information about the variables included in the file, including variable names, labels, units, and data types; the Categorical Levels table provides the mapping between values provided in the data and corresponding labels for categorical variables. Users are encouraged to consult the metadata to understand the structure and content of the data before working with it.

References

Arora, M., & Austin, C. (2013). Current Opinion in Pediatrics, 25(2), 261–267. https://doi.org/10.1097/MOP.0b013e32835e9084

Arora, M., Austin, C., Sarrafpour, B., Hernández-Ávila, M., Hu, H., Wright, R. O., & Tellez-Rojo, M. M. (2014). PLoS ONE, 9(5), e97805. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0097805

Arora, M., Bradman, A., Austin, C., Vedar, M., Holland, N., Eskenazi, B., & Smith, D. R. (2012). Environmental Science & Technology, 46(9), 5118–5125. https://doi.org/10.1021/es203569f

Arora, M., Kennedy, B. J., Elhlou, S., Pearson, N. J., Walker, D. M., Bayl, P., & Chan, S. W. Y. (2006). Science of The Total Environment, 371(1-3), 55–62. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2006.07.035

Hare, D., Austin, C., Doble, P., & Arora, M. (2011). Journal of Dentistry, 39(5), 397–403. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdent.2011.03.004

Johnston, J. E., Franklin, M., Roh, H., Austin, C., & Arora, M. (2019). Environmental Science & Technology, 53(10), 6000–6006. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.9b00429

Lin, P.-I. D., Austin, C., Ong, Y. Y., Rifas-Shiman, S. L., Rahman, M. L., Arora, M., & Oken, E. (2025). Environmental Science & Technology, 59(29), 15027–15036. https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.est.5c05460

Uban, K. A., Horton, M. K., Jacobus, J., Heyser, C., Thompson, W. K., Tapert, S. F., Madden, P. A. F., & Sowell, E. R. (2018). Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 32, 97–106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2018.03.005