A new study from neuroscientists has found that a genetic predisposition for depression along with exposure to air pollution greatly elevates the risk of depression in healthy people, according to Medical Xpress.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences (PNAS), was conducted by the neuroscientists at the Lieber Institute for Brain Development (LIBD), on the Johns Hopkins Medical Campus, and Peking University in Beijing, China.
The study’s co-author Dr. Daniel Weinberger said, “The bottom line of this study is that air pollution doesn’t only impact climate change, it’s affecting how your brain works.”
“The effects on liability for depression may just be the tip of the iceberg where brain health is concerned. The major challenge in medicine today is a deeper understanding of how genes and the environment interact with one another. This study sheds a bright light on how this happens,” added Dr. Weinberger, who is also the director and CEO of the Lieber Institute.
Lead author Dr. Hao Yang Tan said, “The key message in this study, which has not been shown before, is that air pollution is affecting important cognitive and emotional circuitry of the brain by changing the expression of genes that are conducive to depression.”
“More people in high-pollution areas will become depressed because their genes and pollution in their environment exaggerate the individual effects of each,” he added.
The team explained that all people have some tendency for developing depression, but certain people have a higher risk – thanks to their genetic predisposition. And this genetic predisposition elevates a person’s risk of developing depression than the average population.
Another lead author Dr. Zhi Li said, “Our results are the first to show a direct, neurological link between air pollution and how the brain works in processing emotional and cognitive information and in risk for depression.”
“What is most intriguing is that the two factors are linked in such a way that they have a multiplier effect on one’s risk of depression. That is, together, risk genes and bad air raise the risk of depression much more than either factor does in isolation,” added Dr. Li.
Dr. Tan said that this new finding has implications for policymakers around the world.
“Armed with this knowledge, leaders and public health officials around the globe have ample evidence that additional air pollution controls will lead to improved cognitive function and lower rates of depression—particularly in densely populated urban areas where air pollution is highest, and stress from socioeconomic and racial inequities is greater,” he said.
“Given the long-term costs of neuropsychiatric disorders, there is an urgent need for scientific and policy strategies to better identify and protect vulnerable individuals from the deleterious brain impacts of air pollution,” Dr. Tan added.
