The Francis Crick Institute and UCL has launched RAPID, a project looking at how air pollution can impact the brain and lead to dementia.
Funded by Race Against Dementia in partnership with the Rosetrees Trust, Team RAPID will look at how PM2.5, a type of air pollution that is about 30 times finer than a human hair, is inhaled and able to affect the brain.
Prof Charles Swanton, the Deputy Clinical Director of the Francis Crick Institute, says:
“In the brain, PM2.5s appear to be taken up by immune cells in the central nervous system, and in their wake we think neurodegeneration can then set in. We want to find out exactly how tiny particles in the air can have such profound impacts on our brains and use that knowledge to develop new drugs to treat dementia.”
You can find out more from the Francis Crick Institute here: https://www.crick.ac.uk/news/2024-10-21_researchers-to-untangle-scientific-link-between-air-pollution-and-dementia
Find out more about Team RAPID from Race Against Dementia here: https://www.raceagainstdementia.com/news/team-rapid-tracking-the-invisible-dementia-trigger-in-air-pollution