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Abstract
Background and Objectives In high-pollution areas, physical activity may have a paradoxical effect on brain health by increasing particulate deposition in the lungs. We examined whether physical activity modifies associations of air pollution (AP) with brain volumes in an epidemiologic framework.
Methods The UK Biobank enrolled >500,000 adult participants from 2006 to 2010. Wrist accelerometers, multimodal MRI with T1 images and T2 fluid-attenuated inversion recovery data, and land use regression were used to estimate vigorous physical activity (VigPA), structural brain volumes, and AP, respectively, in subsets of the full sample. We evaluated associations among AP interquartile ranges, VigPA, and brain structure volumes and assessed interactions between AP and VigPA.
Results Eight thousand six hundred participants were included, with an average age of 55.55 (SD 7.46) years. After correction for multiple testing, in overall models, VigPA was positively associated with gray matter volume (GMV) and negatively associated with white matter hyperintensity volume (WMHV), while NO2, PM2.5absorbance, and PM2.5 were negatively associated with GMV. NO2 and PM2.5absorbance interacted with VigPA on WMHV (false discovery rate–corrected interaction p = 0.037). Associations between these air pollutants and WMHVs were stronger among participants with high VigPA. Similarly, VigPA was negatively associated with WMHV for those in areas of low NO2 and PM2.5absorbance but was null among those living in areas of high NO2 and PM2.5absorbance.
Discussion Physical activity is associated with beneficial brain outcomes, while AP is associated with detrimental brain outcomes. VigPA may exacerbate associations of AP with white matter hyperintensity lesions, and AP may attenuate the beneficial associations of physical activity with these lesions.
Glossary
- AP=
- air pollution;
- ESCAPE=
- European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects;
- FDR=
- false discovery rate;
- GMV=
- gray matter volume;
- IQR=
- interquartile range;
- LUR=
- land use regression;
- mg=
- milligravities;
- MVPA=
- moderate to vigorous PA;
- NOX=
- nitrogen oxides;
- PA=
- physical activity;
- PM=
- particulate matter;
- VigPA=
- vigorous PA;
- WMHV=
- white matter hyperintensity volume;
- WMV=
- white matter volume
Footnotes
Go to Neurology.org/N for full disclosures. Funding information and disclosures deemed relevant by the authors, if any, are provided at the end of the article.
See page e445
- Received April 6, 2021.
- Accepted in final form October 22, 2021.
- © 2021 American Academy of Neurology
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