The pollution has various effects on the health of human beings and one of them is in the functioning of the brain, which is indicated in a study developed by neuroscientists from the Lieber Institute for Brain Development (LIBD), at the Johns Hopkins Medical Campus, and Peking University in Beijing, China, and which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Daniel R. Weinberger, of the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, says that “the effects on responsibility for depression may be just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to brain health. The main challenge in today’s medicine is a deeper understanding of how genes and the environment interact with each other. This study sheds a bit of light to understand this relationship ”.
Although most people can be prone to depression, for some the risk is higher due to genes and adding poor air quality increases the risk of triggering the condition. Although it should be noted that it does not mean that a person will develop the disease, but the risk is higher compared to the population average.
Meanwhile, Hao Yang Tan mentioned that air pollution is affecting the brain’s cognitive and emotional circuits by changing the expression of genes that lead to depression.
“There will be more and more people living in highly polluted areas who may become depressed because their genes and the pollution in their environment, when interacting, increase the individual effects of each”He added.
Zhi Li, lead author of the study, pointed out that the study results are lThe first that shows a direct link on the functioning of the brain in the processing of emotional and cognitive information, pollution and the risk of suffering from depression.
The study was conducted between 352 adults living in Beijing, city where high levels of contamination are registered and the analysis of the cases was in the mathematical probability that a person suffers from depression.
With information from ABC.
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