British scientists are launching a research project that will prove that the air we breathe can affect our brains. This work will be vital, they say, to understanding a major medical problem: how air pollution can trigger dementia.
Pollution could have negative effects on the brain PHOTO: Shuterstock
In recent years, scientists have discovered that air pollution is one of the most pernicious threats to human health and have shown that it is involved in causing cancer, heart disease, diabetes, low birth rates and many other health problems. .
Now scientists from the Francis Crick Institute will analyze its involvement in the phenomenon of neurodegeneration through a research project called “Rapid”, funded by the charity Race Against Dementia and which will be launched on Monday, October 21, The Guardian writes.
“Rapid” will involve scientists examining the exact processes by which tiny pollutant particles can lead to dementia. It could also provide insight into how airborne particles trigger disease in general, and could also help develop new drugs to counter the progression of conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Air pollution is not generally associated with dementia. However, epidemiologists have recently discovered that airborne particles are actually quite strongly associated with the risk of neurodegenerative diseases.
“We want to find out exactly how tiny particles in the air can have such a profound impact on our brains and use this knowledge to develop new drugs to treat dementia,” said one of the project’s leaders, Professor Charles Swanton, Crick’s deputy clinical director.
A key type of air pollution consists of suspensions of tiny fragments of solids and liquid droplets. These are produced by car and truck exhaust, factories, dust, pollen, volcanoes, fires and other sources and are known as particulate matter 2.5 or simply PM2.5.
“These particles are less than 2.5 millionths of a meter in diameter – about 30 times finer than a human hair – and are so small that they can penetrate deep into the cavities of the human body. In dementia, PM2.5 is inhaled and is thought to reach the brain via the olfactory bulb, a rounded mass of tissue that sits above the nasal cavity and plays a key role in processing olfactory information,” claim the authors of the project.
“In the brain, PM2.5 appears to be taken up by immune cells in the central nervous system and, as a result, we think neurodegeneration can set in,” Swanton stated.
However, exactly how this process unfolds and leads to dementia is unclear. Thus, a major goal of the Rapid project will be to unravel the precise process by which PM2.5 causes brain tissue to form the clumps that are the hallmark of Alzheimer’s disease.
“We have strong evidence linking exposure to PM2.5 to brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, but we don’t yet know if it directly triggers neurodegeneration or if it promotes the process that is already occurring in vulnerable peoplesaid Dr Sonia Gandhi, Head of the Laboratory of Neurodegeneration Biology at the Crick and University College London.
Researchers believe that one of three different mechanisms is involved in how air pollution triggers dementia. PM2.5 particles can directly speed up the process by which proteins clump together in the brain – and cause Alzheimer’s.
