Can Air Pollution Affect Your Brain?

Bad for the environment, bad for wildlife, and bad for your health. The negative effects of air pollution are wide ranging and well evidenced. It’s no secret that prolonged exposure to polluted air can have serious impacts on your health. Diseases like lung cancer, asthma and breathing difficulties in general are all linked to air pollution. But does it have any effect on your brain?

Tiny particles

New research by Lancaster University has discovered that, yes, air pollution does have an effect on the brain. While most studies focus on the detrimental effects on the lungs and heart, the scientists at Lancaster analysed people’s brain tissue. In total, they analysed 37 people - 29 people from the highly polluted Mexico City, and eight participants from Manchester, aged 62-92 – some of whom died from neurodegenerative diseases.

The results

An examination of the nanoparticles in the participants’ brain tissue found millions of magnetite particles. They differ from the small amount that naturally occur in brain tissue because of their rounded shape. In terms of proportion, there were around a hundred rounded magnetite particles for every one jagged, natural magnetite particle.

In previous research at Lancaster, Professor Barbara Maher has found that magnetite particles, specifically these rounded forms, are present in the air outside power stations. It’s quite clear that there’s a link to air pollution.

A bigger picture

Given that the pollutants are making their way into the brain, there’s nothing to stop them spreading. It’s thought that the findings might be linked to other diseases, such as Alzheimer’s. “There is no blood-brain barrier with nasal delivery,” explains Lancaster’s Professor David Allsop, “once nanoparticles directly enter olfactory areas of the brain through the nose, they can spread to other areas of the brain, including hippocampus and cerebral cortex – regions affected in Alzheimer’s disease.”

The research doesn’t stand alone though. A 2015 study in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease found that long term exposure to polluted air increases the risk of developing Alzheimer’s. It’s likely that further research will be taken out specifically relating to Alzheimer’s and air pollution.

Solutions

So how do we fix the problem? People can’t avoid breathing. Clearly it’s the air that needs cleaning up. Controlling emissions is at the centre of this. With a number of different regulations aiming to minimise harmful emissions, flexibility is an important part of the solution. The many considerations when designing a flexible abatement system are discussed in ‘Flexibility is Key to Solving Air Pollution Abatement Challenges’.