A new study field is disentangling the ways in which chronic exposure to air pollutants significantly impacts cognitive health, leading to diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.
Sherry Baker reports for OpenMind Magazine.
In short:
- Air pollutants decrease brain volume in children and increase the risk of neurological disorders in adults.
- Long-term exposure to fine particulate matter (PM2.5) affects brain architecture and cognitive functions.
- Exposonomics, the field that studies how environmental exposures impacts human health, relies on massive amounts of data. Artificial intelligence is helping researchers to comprehend it all.
- Research suggests that lowering air pollution levels could mitigate cognitive decline and reduce dementia risk.
Key quote:
"Anything from our external environment—the air we breathe, food we eat, the water we drink, the emotional stress that we face every day—all of that gets translated into our biology."
— Rosalind Wright, professor of pediatrics and co-director of the Institute for Exposomic Research at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
Why this matters:
Despite air pollution decreasing in the United States in recent decades, the problem has only intensified in the Global South and still impacts millions in poorer communities in the U.S.
Air pollution has been linked to faster cognitive decline in older adults and increased rates of psychiatric disorders like depression and bipolar disorder across all ages. The interaction between pollutants and brain function could potentially disrupt emotional regulation and cognitive processing.
