Prenatal Exposure to Air Pollution Linked to Brain Changes Associated with Behavioural Problems in Children

06/11/2019

Over the past few decades, various studies have investigated the impact of air pollution on cognitive capacities in children. However, very little research has been done on the changes that air pollution could induce in children's growing brains . A new study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by "la Caixa", with the participation of Dr. Jesús Pujol, the research director of the Hospital del Mar Magnetic Resonance Unit and researcher at the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM) who carried out the magnetic resonance imaging studies, with the participation of Dr. Jesús Pujol, has found a link between air pollution and changes in the corpus callosum, a region of the brain associated with neurodevelopmental disorders such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

The study was carried out as a part of BREATHE, a project whose earlier findings suggest that air pollution has harmful effects on cognitive functions in schoolchildren and is also associated with functional changes in the brain.

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