# Air pollution and early signs of dementia

> **NIH NIH R01** · EMORY UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $763,967

## Abstract

Air pollution exposure is a critical health risk factor for many chronic illnesses and has been linked to dementia.
However, there are a number of gaps in our knowledge of how air pollution contributes to dementia, and these
are the focus of our proposal. First, most air pollution exposure studies do not differentiate between causes of
dementia. Second, they tend to rely on cross-sectional analyses. Third, they do not consider dementia
biomarkers. To address those issues, we chose to focus on longitudinal studies of aging and brain health
where we can distinguish among two of the most common causes of dementia, i.e., Alzheimer's disease (AD)
and vascular cognitive impairment (VCI), which may also co-exist. Specifically, we will leverage data from four
diverse longitudinal studies of brain aging including more than 23,000 participants from metro-Atlanta and
Georgia spanning a wide range of age, socioeconomic status, and cognitive status. These longitudinal studies
focus on unaffected or minimally affected individuals since studying those individuals affords us the best
chance of determining the relative contribution of AD and VCI to overall cognition. Each study performs
detailed neurocognitive testing, standard cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) biomarkers of AD and brain volumetric
biomarkers of AD and VCI and we will assign high-resolution fine particle ambient air pollution concentrations
(PM2.5 and its components) to all study participants based on their current and past residential addresses.
Leveraging these rich data allows to test for association between air pollution and different facets of AD- or
VCI. To understand how air pollution contributes to AD, VCI, or both, we will 1) investigate associations
between air pollution and indicators of AD characterized by subjective memory complaints, short-term memory
or language impairment based on neurocognitive testing, positive AD CSF biomarkers (i.e., Aβ42, total-Tau,
and phospho-Tau) and smaller hippocampal volumes; 2) investigate associations between air pollution and
indicators of VCI characterized by impairment in the executive function (measured by neurocognitive testing)
and cerebral microvascular ischemia changes measured by brain MRI; and 3) investigate associations
between air pollution and accelerated epigenetic aging and dementia-related DNAm patterns. Critically, we will
also evaluate how sex, race/ethnicity, socioeconomic factors, genetic risk, depression, cardiovascular disease
and diabetes modify the associations between air pollution and indicators of AD and VCI. This study will
provide biological insights of how air pollution affects early manifestations of the two most common causes of
dementia (AD and VCI) and how modifiers (e.g., sex and race/ethnicity) affect vulnerability. Therefore, we
expect this work to have an important and sustained impact on the field.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10525882
- **Project number:** 1R01AG079170-01
- **Recipient organization:** EMORY UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Anke Huels
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $763,967
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-09-30 → 2027-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10525882

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10525882, Air pollution and early signs of dementia (1R01AG079170-01). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10525882. Licensed CC0.

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