New UNM Research Shows Wildfire Smoke Impacts on the Brain

Smoke from the massive wildfires still burning in northern Canada has cast a pall over much of North America this summer, leading to health concerns for older people and those with chronic respiratory conditions.But a new paper published in the Journal of Neuroinflammation by University of New Mexico Health Sciences scientists gives new cause for alarm, finding that wildfire smoke can trigger inflammation in the brain that persists for a month or more.Worse, the inflammatory process affects the hippocampus – the brain region associated with learning and memory – altering neurotransmitters and signaling molecules, said the paper’s senior author, Matthew Campen, PhD, Regents’ professor in the College of Pharmacy and co-director of the UNM Clinical & Translational Science Center. Most people don’t appreciate that there is a neurological outcome from these particles. You think of the lungs and maybe the cardiovascular system, but to move to the realm of cognition and memory and mood, that’...