Poor Air Quality Linked to Cognitive Problems in Babies

Poor air quality could be causing cognitive deficits in babies and toddlers, according to new research from the University of East Anglia.

A new study published today reveals an association between poor air quality in India and impaired cognition in infants under two.

Without action, the negative impact on children’s long-term brain development could have consequences for life.

Lead researcher Prof John Spencer, from UEA’s School of Psychology, said: “Prior work has shown that poor air quality is linked to cognitive deficits in children, as well as to emotional and behavioral problems, which can have a severe impact on families.

“Very small particulate fragments in the air are a major concern as they can move from the respiratory tract into the brain.

“Until now, studies had failed to show a link between poor air quality and cognitive problems in babies, when brain growth is at its peak and the brain may be particularly sensitive to toxins. Our study is the first to show this association.

“We worked with families in rural India to see how in-home air quality affects infants’ cognition.”

The team collaborated with the Community Empowerment Lab in Lucknow, India — a global health research and innovation organization that works with rural communities to engage in science collaboratively.

They worked with families from a range of socio-economic backgrounds in Shivgarh, a rural community in Uttar Pradesh — one of the states in India that has been most strongly impacted by poor air quality.

They assessed the visual working memory and visual processing speed of 215 infants using a specially-designed cognition task from October 2017 to June 2019.

On one display, the tots were shown flashing colored squares that were always the same after each ‘blink’. On a second display, one colored square changed after each blink.

Prof Spencer said: “This task capitalizes on infant’s tendency to look away from something that’s visually familiar and towards something new. We were interested in whether infants could detect the changing side and how well they did as we made the task harder by including more squares on each display.”

The team used air quality monitors in the children’s homes to measure emission levels and air quality. They also took into account and controlled for family socio-economic status.

“This research shows for the first time that there is an association between poor air quality and impaired visual cognition in the first two years of life, when brain growth is at its peak,” said Prof Spencer.

“Such impacts could carry forward across years, negatively impacting long-term development.

“Reversely, our research indicates that global efforts to improve air quality could have benefits to infants’ emerging cognitive abilities.

“This, in turn, could have a cascade of positive impacts because improved cognition can lead to improved economic productivity in the long term and reduce the burden on healthcare and mental health systems.

Sources:

John P Spencer, Samuel H Forbes, Sophie Naylor, Vinay P Singh, Kiara Jackson, Sean Deoni, Madhuri Tiwari, Aarti Kumar. Poor air quality is associated with impaired visual cognition in the first two years of life: A longitudinal investigation. eLife, 2023; 12 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.83876 

University of East Anglia. (2023, April 24). Poor air quality linked to cognitive problems in babies. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 26, 2023 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/04/230424223140.htm

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