The Effect of Air Pollution on Your Child’s Brain

We already know air pollution is bad for our physical health. Research about the effect of air pollution on your kid’s brain development is also alarming.

Many schools and homes are located in close proximity to busy roads. It’s also usually true that air pollution from traffic peaks when children are at school. Could the pollution affect how well they function? A growing body of research suggests that it does.

For example, in a study of more than 2,700 7- to 10-year-olds in Barcelona, Spain, children who attended schools with more polluted air did worse on tests of their memory over a year than children from less polluted schools.

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Lead author Jordi Sunyer, research professor at the Childhood and Environment Programme at Barcelona Institute for Global Health, said that air pollution could lead to an increase in collective “school failure.”

“For the average person, it’s important to avoid commuting to the schools by car,” he added. “If possible, bike or walk.” If you can't do either of those, park your car at least 100 meters from the school or turn off the engine in front of the school while waiting for your child. School buses should always have a working particulate filter.

“For those parents whose homes are near highways, there is an elevated health risk,” said Serap Erdal, PhD, an associate professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. The Barcelona study is significant because it looked at children at a “crucial” age for brain development.

Much animal evidence suggests that common particulates in air are neurotoxins; the question is how much exposure makes a difference. A 2020 overview concluded that there was not enough evidence to say that air pollution aggravated attention deficit hyperactivy disorder. There is reason, however, to think that children with a broad range of intellectual disabilities are more likely to live in areas with more air pollution.

In young children, the neurons in their brains are expanding at a significant rate. If certain pollutants alter the maturing pathways in their brains, the pollution may cause increased cognitive and emotional problems later in adolescence.

Air pollution may be linked to autism spectrum disorder, for example, particularly if a child is exposed through the mother while in the womb, according to separate studies in Vancouver, Cincinnati, and Shanghai. A 2020 analysis of children from six U.S. states backed up that idea.   

In a study conducted in New York City, more than 600 expectant mothers carried detector backpacks that measured their exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). These chemicals come from common pollutants such as vehicle exhaust, power plant emissions, and cigarette smoke. The women’s children were later tested for exposure and given cognitive and behavioral tests, revealing both prenatal and subsequent brain damage.

“It’s a double hit,” lead author Bradley Peterson, MD, a psychiatrist at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, told the Los Angeles Times. “They have the abnormality from prenatal life throughout the left hemisphere and then on top of that they have this bilateral front hit from exposures around age 5.”

The damage before the children were born and then later to the prefrontal bilateral region of their brains disrupted the development of white matter. White matter affects how the brain learns and functions. It’s been called the “subway of the brain,” connecting regions of grey matter so that the brain operates efficiently.

Some of the most polluted cities in the world are Delhi, Beijing, Kuwait City, and Mexico City. It’s clear that pollution can harm lung tissue and, in turn, weaken our body’s defenses against harmful microbes and large particles like dust and pollen. It can also lead to heart problems. But research over the last decade has suggested that brain development is affected as well.

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