Scientists fromUniversity of British Columbia and University of Victoria they found that breathing in air pollution could affect how the brain is wired. Inhaling car exhaust could, in fact, change brain connectivity after just two hours of exposure.
The research
In a randomized double-blind study, 25 healthy adults were exposed to pollution in a laboratory setting. “Polluted” sessions were followed by other sessions characterized by exposure to clean filtered air. Brain scans of volunteers showed a reduction in so-called “intrinsic functional connectivity” (Default mode network, or DMN). It is a set of interconnected brain regions linked to introspection, reflection, memory and other important activities. The full research was published on Environmental Health, and I link it here.
It is the first time that these results have been observed in humans, while other studies in the past have looked at the general effects of pollution on the brain. And they detected a decrease of work skills e of memory.
Does pollution damage brain connectivity?
As always, more and more studies are needed to confirm every discovery of this type in detail, but the results are raining down on us from every laboratory on the planet now. Pollution, it is now certain, is not limited to kill 9 million people a year: it makes all the others dumber as well.
And while it is true that the results of this study showed that the changes observed in brain connectivity disappeared when the lungs were exposed to clean air, it is also true that long-term exposure to air pollution leads to permanent effects . This is not reassuring, considering the fact that now practically 99% of the inhabitants of the planet is exposed for a short or long time to polluted air.
We need to know more. By force.
The relatively recent discovery that air pollution can damage not only the body, but also the brain (which was previously thought to be somehow protected) deserves further investigation. It is necessary to converge the results of the various studies undertaken on the planet. In China, for example, recent studies have found that air pollution worsens test results in languages and mathematics: exposing yourself to pollution is equivalent, in short, to losing a year of education. In Mexico, markers linked to Alzheimer's have been detected in young adults, children and infants due to extreme air pollution.
And we are talking, so far, of studies connected only to the effects of car exhausts. Think about what even more harmful or more rapid sources of pollution could do to the connectivity of our brain. If we cannot avoid living in places where the air is compromised, we at least need to protect ourselves: air filters in the car, and in very crowded places a "non-ideological", "non-mandatory", but damn practical mask to filter particles.
Above all, we need to understand the long-term effects that pollution has on our brain: because, literally, it smells bad.
