Destination brain: inhaled, inflammation-provoking nanopollutants as a potential source of nerve cell damage

[Guest guest]

* Destination brain.

<http://www.sciencenews.org/view/feature/id/58906/title/Destination_brain>

Scientists have known that air pollution can impair airways and

blood vessels. The emerging surprise is what it might do to the

brain. Increasingly, studies have been highlighting

inflammation-provoking nanopollutants as a potential source of

nerve cell damage. ~Science News

*excerpt:*

When Lilian Calderón-Garcidueñas recruited children for a study probing

the effects of air pollution, Ana was just 7. The trim girl with an

above-average IQ of 113 " was bright, very beautiful and clinically

healthy, " the physician and toxicologist recalls.

But now Ana (not her real name) is 11. And after putting her and 54

other children from a middle-class area of Mexico City through a new

battery of medical and cognitive tests, Calderón-Garcidueñas found that

something has been ravaging the youngsters' lungs, hearts --- and,

especially troubling, their minds.

Brain scans and screening for chemical biomarkers in the blood pointed

to inflammation affecting all parts of the brain, says

Calderón-Garcidueñas, of the National Institute of Pediatrics in Mexico

City and the University of Montana in Missoula. On MRI scans, white

spots showed up in the prefrontal cortex. In the elderly, she says, such

brain lesions tend to denote reduced blood flow and often show up in

people who are developing dementias, including Alzheimer's disease.

*See also:*

Cerebrospinal fluid and serum markers of inflammation in autism.

<http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16139734>

Zimmerman AW, Jyonouchi H, Comi AM, Connors SL, Milstien S, Varsou A,

Heyes MP.

Pediatr Neurol. 2005 Sep;33(3):195-201

Neuroglial activation and neuroinflammation in the brain of patients

with autism. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15546155>

Vargas DL, Nascimbene C, Krishnan C, Zimmerman AW, Pardo CA.

Ann Neurol. 2005 Jan;57(1):67-81.