Prenatal and early life exposure to air pollution induced hippocampal vascular leakage and impaired neurogenesis in association with behavioral deficits
Open accessAbstract
Exposure to traffic-related air pollution (TRAP) is associated with a range of neurodevelopmental disorders in human populations. In rodent models, prenatal TRAP exposure increased depressive behaviors and increased brain microglial activity. To identify cellular mechanisms, we examined adult neurogenesis and the blood–brain barrier (BBB) in relation to cognition and motivated behaviors in rats that were exposed to a nano-sized TRAP subfraction from gestation into adulthood. At age 5 months, exposed male rats had 70% fewer newly generated neurons in the dentate gyrus (DG) of the hippocampus. Microglia were activated in DG and CA1 subfields (35% more Iba1). The BBB was altered, with a 75% decrease of the tight junction protein ZO-1 in the CA1 layer, and twofold more iron deposits, a marker of microhemorrhages. The exposed rats had impaired contextual memory (novel object in context), reduced food-seeking behavior, and increased depressive behaviors (forced swim). Deficits of de novo neurogenesis were inversely correlated with depressive behavior, whereas increased microbleeds were inversely correlated with deficits in contextual memory. These findings give the first evidence that prenatal and early life exposure to TRAP impairs adult hippocampal neurogenesis and increases microbleeds in association with behavioral deficits.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Lead and other pollutants are damaging to the developing brain and PFC.
“Similarly, we can find lead and other pollutants to be damaging to the developing brain and PFC [331–334].”
From Development of prefrontal cortex (2022) · cites this paper as [333]
The Discussion (page not available) reports that prenatal and early-life exposure to traffic-related particulate pollution impaired hippocampal neurogenesis and was associated with behavioral deficits in rats. The paper does not establish damage from lead specifically or report damage to the prefrontal cortex (PFC); its brain findings focus on the hippocampus. (LLM, conf=0.88)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredIn a rat model exposed to ultrafine PM throughout gestation into adulthood, male offspring at 5 months showed microglia activation, increased iron deposition, and behavioral deficits including increased depressive behavior.
“In their model, rats were exposed ultrafine PM < 200 nm diameter collected near a Los Angeles freeway throughout gestation into adulthood. Investigators only followed male offspring, and at 5 months of age observed microglia activation and increased Fe deposition. Exposed animals showed behavioral deficits, including increased depressive behavior.”
From Air pollution and children’s health—a review of adverse effects associated with prenatal exposure from fine to ultrafine particulate matter (2021) · cites this paper as [116]
The Materials and methods describe exposure beginning during gestation to nanoscale particles derived from PM smaller than 200 nm collected near a Los Angeles freeway; only male offspring remained in the exposure group after weaning. The Results report hippocampal microglial activation and increased iron deposits, and Fig. 5 reports increased depressive behavior. The stated age is imprecise: brains were analyzed at 25 weeks, while behavioral testing took place from 10 to 20 weeks, rather than all outcomes being observed at five months. (LLM, conf=0.86)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
The citation lists haven’t been fetched yet
References 57 · Cited by 118
Research works printed but not linked: 1
- [30]Volk HE Lurmann F Penfold B Hertz-Picciotto I McConnell R Traffic-related air pollution, particulate matter, and autism JAMA Psychiatry 2013 70 71 10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2013.266 23404082 PMC4019010 · DOI · Paper page
- Authors
- Woodward, N. C., Haghani, A., Johnson, R. G., Hsu, T. M., Saffari, A., Sioutas, C., Kanoski, S. E., Finch, C. E., & Morgan, T. E.
- Affiliations
- University of Southern California (US)
- Corresponding author
- Morgan, T. E.
- Venue
- Translational Psychiatry
- Published
- 2018-11-29
- Volume
- 8
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 261-261
- ISSN
- 2158-3188 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6265287
- OpenAlex
- W2903030538
- Cited by
- 118
- References
- 57
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 18 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 26 · 2019: 9
- FWCI
- 6.28
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- Translational Psychiatry (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (ES022845)
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute on Aging (AG0501521, AG0037, AG052374)
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | NIH | National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (DK104897)
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (RD83544101)
- U.S. Department of Health & Human Services | National Institutes of Health (T32AG0037, T32AG052374, AG0501521, R01DK104897, P01ES022845)
- Environmental Protection Agency (RD83544101)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis › Air Quality and Health Impacts
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Developmental Neuroscience › Neurogenesis and neuroplasticity mechanisms
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Neurology › Barrier Structure and Function Studies
- Keywords
- traffic-related air pollution, prenatal exposure, early life exposure, adult hippocampal neurogenesis, blood-brain barrier, microbleeds, microglial activation, ZO-1 tight junction, contextual memory, food-seeking behavior, depression-like behavior, neurodevelopmental disorders
- MeSH terms
- Air Pollutants, Animals, Astrocytes, Vehicle Emissions, Behavior, Animal, Blood-Brain Barrier, Depression, Feeding Behavior, Female, Hippocampus, Male, Memory, Pregnancy, Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects, Rats, Sprague-Dawley, Microglia, Neurogenesis
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
