Air pollution and developing brains
Titled Association between Traffic-Related Air Pollution in Schools and Cognitive Development in Primary School Children it was published in the journal PLOS Medicine. The study assembled data from over 2,700 primary school children between the ages of seven and 10. Researchers measured the children in three areas relating to memory and attentiveness, and did so every three months for one year.
The study found that children who go to school in high-traffic areas and are therefore exposed to a greater amount of air pollutants, are slower to develop cognitively and achieve lower scores in memory tests. The effect of air pollution on heart and lungs has been documented, but its effect on the brain, in this case on the developing brain, has not been widely studied.
Working memory and pollution
A striking example of the differences in brain development came in the area of memory. Children tested in low-pollution areas were found to improve their working memory over the year by 11.5 percent while those children in high-pollution areas in the same age-range improved their memory during that same year by just 7.4 percent.
The researchers took in such factors as commuting time to school, amount of green space at their schools, the level of education achieved by their parents and smoking n the home and still found a negative association between air pollution, cognitive brain development and memory.
They measured the level of burning fossil fuels, carbon, nitrogen dioxide and level of ultrafine particles in both the playgrounds of each school and in classrooms. Dr. Jordi Sunyer from the Barcelona research group said the results indicate air pollutants have “very robust, consistent effects” on cognition and memory in children.
