Head circumference growth and child behavior in the MINA-Brazil birth cohort

Behavior difficulties usually develop early in life, with high levels of heterogeneity in the first years and then, past early childhood, it tends to crystallize and stabilize. Also, it is known that the influence of environmental and health exposures on child socioemotional development permeates the brain architecture formation and structuring. The head circumference (HC) evaluation is an estimate of intracranial volume, brain size and growth in young children. Although there is some evidence about the association between the HC in early life and behavioral outcomes, this relationship remains little investigated, with limited methodologies and with inconsistent results.