Given that sibling-pairs share many possible genetic and family-levelenvironmental confounders (Thapar and Rice 2021), this observationstrengthens the causal nature of this exposure-outcome relationship.
How much does comparing siblings make the argument stronger that prenatal smoking caused the difference in V1 surface area, and what factors could still differ with siblings?
Regarding regionalassociations, V1 showed the strongest negative relationship
Why do the authors thik that V1 showed the strongest relationship with prenatal smoking in comparison with the other cortical regions they examined?
The “Maternal smoking around birth” variable (field 1787) was used toclassify UKB participants: individuals who responded consistently tothe questionnaire regarding their perinatal exposure across instances(until the neuroimaging visit) were classified as exposed or nonex-posed.
Could relying on self-reported maternal smoking lead to some participants being incorrectly classified as exposed or non-exposed? How might that affect the results?