For the first time, a team of scientists has detected abundant amounts of magnetic nanoparticles in human brain tissue, which are frequently found in polluted air in large cities such as Tokyo, Bombay or Mexico City, where some of the participants in the study came from. study.
Small particles of iron oxide, known as magnetite , are toxic and it has been suggested that they could play an important role in the onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
For their research, the team of scientists from the University of Lancaster (United Kingdom) collected brain tissue samples from 37 deceased people between the ages of 3 and 92 who had lived both in Manchester (United Kingdom) and in Mexico City (Mexico). .
The results of examining these brain tissue samples revealed that although magnetite occurs naturally in the brain, most of the particles present were spherical, with diameters up to 150 nm. For each natural magnetite particle, they found 100 spherical particles (typical of power plants). The spherical particles are usually accompanied by nanoparticles of other transition metals, such as cobalt, platinum or nickel. These toxic particles disrupt normal cellular functions in the brain, causing oxidative stress and creating unstable free radicals.
Although no clear relationship between magnetite and Alzheimer’s has been established, previous studies have found a correlation between high amounts of this compound and disease in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.
“It is too early to conclude that this finding may have a causal role in Alzheimer’s disease or any other brain disease,” the authors explain.
The study has been published in the journal The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
