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Wildfire pollution exposure during childhood adversely affects cognitive and neural development
Judd N, Kievit R ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view ·Key points
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Abstract
Air pollution has well-documented negative cardiovascular and respiratory consequences. However, the impact of fine particulate matter pollution (PM) on brain development is unclear. Animal studies suggest that exposure to early-life PMcan cause adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes, but in vivo human work has been hampered by cross-sectional designs and heavily confounded PM 2.5 exposure measures. Here we use an innovative natural experimental design to isolate the effects of wildfire pollution on neurocognitive development in a large cohort of children (N>9000, 4 waves, age 9-16). Doing so, we find that greater wildfire PM 2.5 exposure is robustly associated with slower brain development and shallower cognitive improvement across early adolescence. Our study underscores the urgent public health concern that wildfire PM 2.5 poses for childhood development.