How does air pollution impact your brain?
12 comments
·September 15, 2025cahaya
SweetSoftPillow
Same on first visit, but loaded fine after reload.
whyandgrowth
Could the impact of polluted air on children's brain development be one of the reasons why today's children are losing motivation to learn?
eurekin
I'm personally betting, that they simply have easier access to more information, comparing to me at the same age.
When I started Uni, the "A diploma will guarantee you great job opportunities" mantra was unshakeable.
Now I think, the pendulum swung so hard in the other direction, that kids of same age have tons of refuttals at their disposal. It must take a lot more work, from parents, to instill and motivate what was once seen as a good career starter.
wtbdbrrr
It's not enough to explain the problem, IMO. And it's a problem that is worse in some population segments than others. Even in poor countries.
The mechanisms that separate more from less affected segments go back one and more generations, which is why it's not harder for parents to keep their kids on track despite "more stuff" but a lot of parents have it harder because their own brains/organisms are more affected than those of others.
And "some take more care of themselves than others" loops right back into my argument, which is so damn annoying.
It's taken me a great big freaking while to "rewire what fires together", including motivation and attention and I've looked at so many angles, while so many more and important ones require a bio-chem lab, an fMRI and PhD level knowledge in Molecular Bio-Tech.
Anyone wanna sponsor some of it :D? I'm serious, but among the elderly (37).
ZeroGravitas
In developed nations we are past the peak of air pollution so kids are breathing cleaner air:
wtbdbrrr
look at any connections to the thyroid gland, down and upstream.
Poor breathing = less NO, less oxygen → potential stress on thyroid metabolism (and almost any other metabolism).
NO is nitric oxide: the paranasal sinuses are a major source of NO gas.
And NO gas has antimicrobial effects (helps sterilize inhaled air), acts as a vasodilator (helps regulate blood flow and oxygen delivery), and enhances oxygen uptake in the lungs.
null
cassepipe
By this logic... shouldn't I have lost a IQ point to smoking ?!
Jensson
What says you didn't? Smoking is associated with worse IQ development according to this study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00223...
11235813213455
not just brain is badly impacted by smoking, but everything else: skin, teeth, lungs, heart, vision, hormones, sleep, immunity, longevity, ..
wtbdbrrr
Nope. Not necessarily.
a) fuck IQ. But since you are using it as a benchmark (here, at least). What is your IQ? How did you gain most of it?
b) How much are you smoking? Are you getting sub-level espresso effects from nicotine? (If you don't drink coffee, got anything to compare it with?)
c) How's your breathing? How often are you sick(ly)?
d) Where do you see yourself under the Bell curve? Professionally and or any other way you might believe is relevant.
Just think high frequency, max amplitude bell curves under bell curves. And then ... yeah, who says you didn't?
Is it me or is the link only opening as JSON?
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