You ever wonder if all the particles teeming in the air you breathe are doing anything to your brain? Scientists sure have and — a self-conscious gasp — they have bad news.
A series of recent studies highlighted in the Washington Post suggest that all kinds of microscopic debris is bypassing our blood-brain barrier and infiltrating our precious gray matter. And we can only begin to fathom the role this might play in driving neurocognitive conditions ranging from autism to dementia.
While it’s unclear exactly how these particles are reaching the brain, according to Caleb Finch, a USC professor renowned for his work on Alzheimer’s and aging, a burgeoning body of evidence suggests that it begins as early as pregnancy.
“There’s a lot we don’t understand yet, but we do know that the risk of dementia increases in proportion to the amount of air pollution,” Finch told WaPo.
One study led by researchers at the Rush Alzheimer’s Disease Center found that foreign particles had penetrated deep into the brains of people who died between the ages of 80 and 91 — even reaching the amygdala, the area responsible for emotional processing.
Another study examined UK Biobank data, a landmark trove of medical and genetic data collected on half a million people living in Britain. It found that the subjects with highest exposure to fine particles that can enter the bloodstream were 14 percent more likely to develop dementia than those with the lowest exposure. Additional brain scans showed that the high pollution exposure subjects had a “reduction in global and several regional brain volumes,” the researchers wrote, as quoted by WaPo.
And a study published September isolated the most problematic pollutants by exposing mice to different airborne particles for five hours and then examining their brains. Unsurprisingly, dust collected from the World Trade Center proved to be significantly damaging, but what shocked researchers was that diesel exhaust was almost as disruptive. Both altered more than 1,200 of the same genes, the reporting noted, and caused Alzheimer’s-related changes to the brain. Since wood smoke didn’t cause these deleterious effects, the researchers believe that metals may be involved in the most damaging forms of pollution to the brain.
Another sweeping study suggests a direct link between air pollution and dementia. After examining over 56 million Americans’ hospital records from 2000 and 2014, researchers found that those who lived in areas with higher levels of fine particle pollution were more likely to be hospitalized with Lewy body dementia and Parkinson’s disease, which are both caused by abnormal clumps in the brain called Lewy bodies. Followup experiments using mice that pollution exposure triggered a buildup of a protein that forms Lewy bodies.
A disposable spoon worth of microplastic in our brains, it seems, may be just the beginning of our concerns. If this news is overwhelming you, maybe try a deep, brain-poisoning breath.
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