New Links in Air Pollution and Dementia

Scientists at Georgia Tech have teamed up with researchers at Johns Hopkins Medicine and Columbia University to better understand how certain types of air pollution increase the risk of developing dementia.

Their findings, published this month in the journal Science, help explain how small particle pollution - think industrial emissions and car exhaust, wildfires and burning wood for heat and cooking - can lead to Lewy body dementia, a devastating disease that causes toxic clumps of protein to destroy nerve cells in the brain.

"Epidemiological studies have suggested a strong link between air pollution and dementia, but what sets this study apart is that we also provide a convincing biological mechanism," says Pengfei Liu, assistant professor School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences and one of the study's co-authors. "This collaborative work shows that fine particulate matter from different geographic regions consistently triggers a specific stain of misfolded protein that drives Lewy body dementia."

The work has "profound implications" for helping scientists and policy makers better understand measures to prevent this type of dementia, which is among the most common forms of the disease and affects millions of people around the world.

Along with Liu, the research team from Georgia Tech includes Rodney Weber, professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences; Minhan Park, a postdoctoral research fellow co-advised by Liu and Weber; Bin Bai, a graduate student in Liu's lab; and Ma Cristine Faye Denna, a graduate student in Weber's lab.

"Figuring out how exposure to atmospheric aerosols might be linked to dementia, and what mechanisms are involved, is a complex and challenging problem - and as this study shows, it takes a large team with many different areas of expertise," Weber adds.

Learn more:

• Science: Lewy body dementia promotion by air pollutants
• Johns Hopkins Medicine newsroom
• Columbia University newsroom
• Press: The Guardian