Adnkronos Milan, Feb. 7 (Adnkronos Salute) – Smog ‘clouds’ the mind. It creates a sort of ‘cognitive fog’ – a condition many have come to know with the long Covid – and also makes everyday routines difficult. A new study published in ‘Nature Communications’ has raised the alarm about this impact of air pollution on the brain, showing how even people’s ability to interpret emotions or concentrate on carrying out a task is reduced by short-term exposure to fine particulate air pollution, potentially making daily activities, such as shopping at the supermarket, more difficult.
Scientists have found that even brief exposure to high concentrations of fine dust can impair the ability to concentrate on tasks, avoid distractions and behave in a socially acceptable way. A team of experts from the Universities of Birmingham and Manchester exposed study participants to either high levels of air pollution, using candle smoke, or clean air. The researchers tested cognitive abilities before and four hours after exposure. The tests measured working memory, selective attention, emotion recognition, psychomotor speed and sustained attention. The results revealed that selective attention and emotion recognition were negatively affected by air pollution, regardless of whether the subjects breathed normally or only through their mouths.
The authors suggest that pollution-induced inflammation may play a role in these deficits, noting that while selective attention and emotion recognition were affected, working memory was not. This suggests that some brain functions are more resilient to short-term pollution exposure. "Our study provides compelling evidence that even short-term exposure" to smog "can have immediate negative effects on brain functions that are essential for daily activities," says co-author Thomas Faherty, University of Birmingham. Poor air quality, adds Francis Pope, University of Birmingham, "compromises the intellectual development and productivity of workers, with significant social and economic implications in a high-tech world that relies on cognitive excellence."
“Reduced productivity,” Pope continues, “impacts economic growth, further highlighting the urgent need for stricter air quality regulations and public health measures to combat the damaging effects of pollution on brain health, particularly in highly affected urban areas.” Cognitive functioning encompasses a wide range of mental processes that are crucial to everyday activities. Selective attention, for example, aids decision-making and goal-directed behavior, such as prioritizing items on a grocery list, ignoring other products, and resisting impulse purchases.
Working memory serves as a temporary workspace for storing and manipulating information, essential for tasks that require simultaneous processing and storage and those that require multiple tasks at once, such as planning a schedule or managing multiple conversations. Socioemotional cognition, which involves identifying and interpreting emotions in oneself and others, helps guide socially acceptable behavior. Although these are separate cognitive skills, they work together to enable the successful completion of tasks both at work and in other aspects of life.
Overall, the authors conclude, the study highlights the need for further research to understand the pathways through which air pollution affects cognitive function and to explore long-term impacts, especially on vulnerable populations such as children and the elderly, as Gordon McFiggans, a co-author from the University of Manchester, points out. The researchers stress the need for further investigation into long-term impacts and potential protective measures. Globally, they note, air pollution – particularly PM 2.5 – is the leading environmental risk factor for human health. The negative impacts of poor air quality on the cardiovascular and respiratory systems are widely recognized, with links to neurodegenerative conditions such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease.