<
https://www.sciencealert.com/microplastics-could-trigger-inflammation-in-human-brain-cells>
'Mounting evidence suggests microplastics in our blood are likely capable of
crossing our mammalian brain-blood barrier. Now preliminary experiments reveal
the potential impact they can have once in there, finding weathered
microplastics are far more toxic to human brain cells than fresh ones.
"The implications of microplastics' harmfulness are particularly alarming, as
secondary microplastics exposed in natural environments induce a more severe
inflammatory response in the brain," says Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science
and Technology (DGIST) biologist Sung-Kyun Choi.
We've utterly surrounded ourselves with plastics. We drape ourselves with them,
communicate with them, eat from them, drink out of them, live within coats of
them, travel in them and on it goes – amounting to 390 million tons of plastic
produced in just 2021 alone. Each of these copious sources shed fragments known
as microplastics throughout their useful lives, not just after disposal.
Exposed to elements like rain, wind, and sunlight, these tiny fragments change
in shape and structure before finding their way back into living bodies. Long
before we are even born we absorb a dust of weathered plastic pieces.
While previous research has tested the effects newly minted plastics have on
our brain cells, DGIST biologist Hee-Yeon Kim and colleagues challenged them
with weathered particles instead. They took a close look at how our brains'
immune cells, microglia, respond to weathered polystyrene-derived microplastics
compared with similarly-sized 'virgin' ones.'
Via Rixty Dixet.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
