In a lab at the University of Manchester, researchers are creating four different types of pollution: wood smoke, cleaning products, diesel exhaust and cooking fumes. A small group of volunteers are donning masks to breathe in lungfuls of polluted air.
The impact of poor air quality on the lungs and cardiovascular system is known elaborately. But the same can’t be said about the brain. The study seeks to analyse blood samples and the results of cognitive tests taken before and after exposure.
Dr Ian Mudway from Imperial College London is one of the researchers leading the study. In the experiment, the pollutant levels are carefully measured and controlled, then fed into an air chamber and piped out to the volunteers to breathe in.
Links Between Pollution And Brain Health
The participants come to the lab several times over multiple months. They get exposed to a different pollutant or clean air for an hour for each visit. The individuals never know the pollutant they are taking in while the experiments are being conducted.
Dr Mudway, an environmental toxicologist, highlighted the statistical associations between air pollution and several brain-related issues – from how children learn, the way in which their cognition changes, to mental health and elevated risks of dementia.
The elaborate research is part of a motive “to actually do experiments to understand why there is an association, to find out what the underlying biological mechanisms are that link air pollution to adverse effects on the human brain,” he added.
One Of The Largest Analyses Of Its Kind
Prof Gordon McFiggans, from the University of Manchester’s Centre for Atmospheric Science, said the team aims to establish if the pollutants are directly reaching the brain or it’s an indirect effect. “At the moment we just don’t know,” he noted.
Currently, 99% of the global population is known to breathe in air that exceeds the UN’s limits for common air pollutants. The researchers believe understanding more about how pollution is impacting the human brain is important.
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The study seems small at first glance. It involves just 13 people. But it is one of the largest analyses of its kind as each volunteer is separately exposed to four different pollutants and the results are then compared to produce an analysis that is expected to be statistically vital.
