Traffic Pollution May Decrease Job Performance: Study

Imagine driving down the highway on a hot day. Open the window and take a breath. Instead of the invigorating air of the coast, you’ll suffocate nearly six liters of diesel fumes.

After a few more breaths, pollutants can irritate your eyes, nose, throat, and lungs. Driving and walking that busy road every day increases your chances of developing bronchitis, nausea, and chronic headaches.

In the world’s most polluted regions, such traffic-related air pollution is thought to kill about five million people each year.

Chris Carsten, Ph.D., professor of respiratory medicine at the University of British Columbia, said:

Now groundbreaking new research from two of BC’s leading universities has found that diesel smoke can be even more insidious than once thought. Traffic pollution can cause a wide range of physical ailments and impair people’s everything from their job performance to their ability to daydream.

From correlation to causation

The study got its start about six years ago when Health Canada came to Carsten with epidemiological data suggesting that traffic pollution could affect people’s cognitive performance. The problem was that although he was a researcher and senior author of a study funded by Health Canada, no one had directly measured the effects of contamination in a controlled environment.

“It’s like controlling a scenario if you’re not actually there, you never know what could happen to high pollution…” he said. “Is it actually pollution, or is it something else that tends to happen in the same scenario?”

Carlsten’s solution resides in a lab at Vancouver General Hospital. Built when the researcher first came to Vancouver in 2007, his UBC Air Pollution Exposure Lab has an “exposure booth” that can simulate breathing a variety of air pollutants.

Because diesel fuel produces some of the most harmful ultrafine particles, laboratories are primarily focused on testing the direct health effects of diesel.

Diesel fuel is most often used in heavy-duty trucks with older engines that produce the most harmful ultrafine particles, so the lab is primarily focused on testing the direct health effects of diesel. I’m here.

Carsten and his colleagues investigated how traffic pollution exacerbates asthma, mixes with allergens, and how diesel pollution penetrates through the lungs and into the blood.

Our latest research published in journals Environmental hygiene Last week marked the first time controlled human exposure was combined with cutting-edge brain-imaging technology.

Researchers recruited 25 healthy adults and sent them to the booth one at a time. While the participants spent her two hours surfing the Internet and reading books, the researchers compared the filtered air with that of Delhi, India, one of the world’s most polluted cities. I have been exposed to both diluted diesel exhaust fumes that are comparable in quality.

Before and after each exposure, participants spent approximately 6 minutes in a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) machine, a noninvasive tool that can map brain activity in real time.

Jody Gaurilk, Ph.D., an associate professor of psychology at the University of Victoria who led the study, said she was stunned when the results came back.

“You can see different places highlighted in red…” she said. “I was surprised.”

“It has spread quite a bit.”

Pollution seems to impair memory and cognitive abilities

Gawryluk, an expert in brain imaging, usually explores how aging affects cognitive decline.

That work is often traced back to the default mode network (DMN). The DMN are several interconnected parts of the brain that play important roles in memory and inner thinking.

“We tell them to lie down [fMRI] Scan for about six minutes without thinking,” she said of the study participants. “Of course, when you say that, people start thinking about things.”

This internal reflex would not be possible without the default network hijacking your brain. But calling those moments “rest” is a mistake, and only indicates “how far out of consciousness” the default network is. I have written Cognitive scientist Warren W. Tryon, in a 2014 book.

Since it was first discovered in 2001, researchers have found that DMN burns over 90% of the energy consumed by the brain. The default network is active while you sleep and continues to work during light anesthesia.

Engaging triggers introspective thoughts and reflections, autobiographical memories, or imaginary future moments.

However, disturbing the DMN can increase the risk of many brain disorders, including autism, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease. Past research is showing.

call to vigilance

This is not the first time that the human environment has been associated with these diseases.Metro His recent study, which tracked thousands of Vancouver children over several years, found that they lived near traffic and away from green spaces. Correlates with higher rates of ADHD When Reduced the likelihood that children will reach critical developmental stages.

By exposing people to contamination in the lab, Gawryluk and Carlsten were able to rule out other environmental factors that might influence their effects on the brain’s default network.

When Gawryluk first looked at the fMRI scan, she remembers seeing clusters of red dots illuminating several sections of her brain. Each is a visual marker that pollution is suppressing the default her network.

“We know that traffic pollution leads to cognitive decline,” says Gaurilk. “This allows us to draw very strong conclusions.”

More work is needed, but Gawryluk said she and her colleagues are already looking at the ramifications of the results, including cognitive decline in nearly every aspect of life, including work.

After short-term exposure, participants’ cognitive abilities recovered within hours.However, long-term exposure — especially poorer and more racialized communities Where green space is less common — could be important for all sorts of diseases, researchers say.

“If you live in a city or in a workplace where you are frequently and continuously exposed to diesel exhaust and other similar pollutants, that could explain the long-term numbers,” Carsten said. Years around the world.

While their study simulates exposure to air pollution in large cities in Asia, Carsten says the increased frequency of wildfire smoke in metropolitan areas in British Columbia is a dark challenge of its own. That will be the focus of the Institute’s next study – to do with wildfire smoke the same thing they did with traffic pollution.

“Unfortunately, as we continue to face these scenarios, we must continue to track down the causes of air pollution,” he said.

Carsten described their findings as a “call for vigilance” and said the growing link between air pollution and cognitive effects should prompt people to reconsider their exposure to traffic pollution. said that

Or, as Gawryluk puts it, “If you sit in traffic and roll the window down, you might think about rolling the window up.”