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Diesel dangers
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Diesel inhalation could alter brain function
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An hour of sniffing diesel fumes in a busy street may not just give you headache, it can alter the way your brain functions, says new research which shows that inhaling exhaust induces a stress response in the brain’s activity.
The research, led by Paul Borm from Zuyd University in The Netherlands, has for the first time demonstrated that inhalation actually alters brain activity. In the study, 10 volunteers were made to spend one hour in a room filled with either clean air or exhaust from a diesel engine. They were wired up to an electroencephalograph (EEG), a machine that records the electrical signals of the brain, and their brain waves monitored during the exposure period and for one hour after they left the room.
The analyses after 30 minutes found that the diesel exhaust began to affect brain activity. The EEG data suggested that the brain displayed a stress response, indicative of changed information processing in the brain cortex, which continued to increase even after the subjects had left the exposure chamber.
The concentration of diesel exhaust that the subjects breathed was set to the highest level that people might encounter in the environment or at work.
“We believe our findings are due to nanoparticles or ‘soot’ particles that are major components of diesel exhaust. These may penetrate the brain and affect brain function. We can only speculate what these effects may mean for the chronic exposure to air pollution encountered in busy cities where the levels of such soot particles can be very high,” Borm said.
“It is conceivable that the long-term effects of exposure to traffic nanoparticles may interfere with normal brain function and information processing,” Borm said.
The study is published in the journal Particle and Fibre Toxicology. — ANI
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