Air Pollution-Related Neurotoxicity Across the Life Span

Abstract

Air pollution is a complex mixture of gases and particulate matter, with adsorbed organic and inorganic contaminants, to which exposure is lifelong. Epidemiological studies increasingly associate air pollution with multiple neurodevelopmental disorders and neurodegenerative diseases, findings supported by experimental animal models. This breadth of neurotoxicity across these central nervous system diseases and disorders likely reflects shared vulnerability of their inflammatory and oxidative stress-based mechanisms and a corresponding ability to produce brain metal dyshomeo-stasis. Future research to define the responsible contaminants of air pollution underlying this neurotoxicity is critical to understanding mechanisms of these diseases and disorders and protecting public health.

Keywords: PM2.5; air pollution; brain metal dyshomeostasis; neurodegenerative disease; neurodevelopmental disorders; ultrafine particles.

Figure 1

Schematic example of how mechanisms of neurotoxicity produced by central nervous system exposures to air pollution, a complex mixture of gases and particulate matter with adsorbed organic and inorganic contaminants, can lead to a pathological feature such as demyelination that is shared across NDDs and NDGDs. Via its effects on multiple cell types in the brain and their interactions, air pollution leads to various mechanisms of injury, which are also shared across NDDs and NDGDs, that underlie such outcomes. Photo by Peggy Anke on Unsplash. Abbreviations: AD, Alzheimer’s disease; ADHD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder; ASD, autism spectrum disorder; MS, multiple sclerosis; NDD, neurodevelopmental disorder; NDGD, neurodegenerative disease; PD, Parkinson’s disease; SCZ, schizophrenia.