Professors Cho Jae-rim and Kim Chang-soo of Yonsei University College of Medicine’s Prevention Medicine Class and Professor Roh Young of the Neurology Department at Gachon University Gil Medical Center conducted the study.

Air pollutants enter the lungs through the respiratory tract and cause inflammation, which causes various diseases throughout the body, especially the inflammation of nerves when it reaches the brain. The research team confirmed through previous studies that air pollutants affect the atrophy of the cerebral cortex. Still, no evidence exists that this phenomenon led to cognitive decline and Alzheimer's.

Cortical changes in the cerebral cortex are closely related to brain diseases, including Alzheimer's. The average cerebral cortex thickness in healthy ordinary people is 2.5 millimeters, but that of patients with Alzheimer's was thinner, with 2.2mm.

The researchers studied the effects air pollution has on brain health using three primary air-polluting materials – ultrafine dust (PM2.5), fine dust (PM10), and nitrous oxide (NO2) – as indicators in 640 healthy adults 50 and older with no brain diseases in Seoul, Incheon, Wonju and Pyeongchang for 32 months from August 2014.

The result showed that the thickness of the cerebral cortex decreased as the concentration of air pollutants increased. For instance, when the concentration of fine dust and ultrafine dust increases by 10μg/, and nitrogen dioxide increases by 10ppb, the thickness of the cerebral cortex decreases by 0.04mm, 0.03mm, and 0.05mm.

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