Environmental exposures and health behavior in association with mental health: a study design

Recent and chronic ambient air pollution exposure in association with telomere length and mitochondrial DNA content in the general population

Telomere length (TL) and mitochondrial DNA content (mtDNAc) are biomarkers of biological ageing that respond to multiple stressors, including air pollution. Despite growing research interest, the association between recent and chronic air pollution and these biomarkers in the general population remains unclear. This study investigated the association between air pollution exposure and TL and mtDNAc using data from the 2018 Belgian Health Examination Survey. Multivariable adjusted generalised linear mixed models were applied to assess the exposure to nitrogen dioxide (NO2), fine particulate matter ≤2.5 μm (PM2.5), and black carbon (BC) over 1-week (recent) and 1-year (chronic) periods prior to participation, estimated with a high-resolution spatiotemporal model. Leucocyte TL and mtDNAc were measured using qPCR. A total of 756 participants (mean age 50.6 years, 49.9 % women) were included in the study. Recent exposure to PM2.5 was associated with a 2.40 % (95 % CI: 0.16, 4.69; p = 0.036) longer TL per IQR increment. Trends of lower mtDNAc were observed for chronic exposure to BC (-3.11, 95 % CI: -6.19, 0.07; p = 0.055) and NO2 (-4.02, 95 % CI: -8.22, 0.36; p = 0.072) per IQR increment. No significant associations were observed between chronic air pollution and TL or recent exposure and mtDNAc. These results suggest an inverse association between chronic air pollution and mtDNAc, and a positive association between recent exposure and TL, providing insight into the time-sensitive and air pollutant effects on ageing biomarkers.

Characterization of the internal working-life exposome using minimally and non-invasive sampling methods - a narrative review

During recent years, we are moving away from the 'one exposure, one disease'-approach in occupational settings and towards a more comprehensive approach, taking into account the totality of exposures during a life course by using an exposome approach. Taking an exposome approach however is accompanied by many challenges, one of which, for example, relates to the collection of biological samples. Methods used for sample collection in occupational exposome studies should ideally be minimally invasive, while at the same time sensitive, and enable meaningful repeated sampling in a large population and over a longer time period. This might be hampered in specific situations e.g., people working in remote areas, during pandemics or with flexible work hours. In these situations, using self-sampling techniques might offer a solution. Therefore, our aim was to identify existing self-sampling techniques and to evaluate the applicability of these techniques in an occupational exposome context by conducting a literature review. We here present an overview of current self-sampling methodologies used to characterize the internal exposome. In addition, the use of different biological matrices was evaluated and subdivided based on their level of invasiveness and applicability in an occupational exposome context. In conclusion, this review and the overview of self-sampling techniques presented herein can serve as a guide in the design of future (occupational) exposome studies while circumventing sample collection challenges associated with exposome studies.

Cerebral cortex Functional Networks of Transdermal Electrical Stimulation at Daling (PC7) Acupoint

The cerebral cortex functional network of Electroencephalogram (EEG) signals during transcutaneous electrical acupoint stimulation (TEAS) on 21 healthy subjects was constructed by using three modules: standard low-resolution brain electromagnetic tomography (sLORETA), phase-locking value (PLV), and complex network. We investigated the brain functional network triggered by PC7 stimulation by comparing with resting state and non-acupoint stimulation. The results showed that the PC7 stimulation mainly activated frontal lobe and temporal lobe including prefrontal cortex (BA10), insular lobe (BA13), temporal gyrus (BA22), anterior cingulate cortex (BA32), temporal pole (BA38), dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (BA46), and inferior frontal cortex (BA47), which are all closely linked to cognition, spirit, and emotion in brain. Furthermore, the degrees of node in frontal, temporal, and whole brain are increased significantly or extreme significantly with p < 0.05, p < 0.05, and p < 0.01, respectively; clustering coefficient in frontal, temporal, and whole brain are all statistically significant (p < 0.05). The information transmission efficiency of cerebral cortex has been greatly improved. During PC7 stimulation, the topological changes in the activation of cerebral regions and cortical functional networks are consistent with the therapeutic effect, which may provide theoretical support for acupoint stimulation to regulate nerve function.

Supervised Kohonen Self-Organizing Maps of Acute Asthma from Air Pollution Exposure

There are unanswered questions with regards to acute respiratory outcomes, particularly asthma, due to environmental exposures. In contribution to asthma research, the current study explored a computational intelligence paradigm of artificial neural networks (ANNs) called self-organizing maps (SOM). To train the SOM, air quality data (nitrogen dioxide, sulphur dioxide and particulate matter), interpolated to geocoded addresses of asthmatics, were used with clinical data to classify asthma outcomes. Socio-demographic data such as age, gender and race were also used to perform the classification by the SOM. All pollutants and demographic traits appeared to be important for the correct classification of asthma outcomes. Age was more important: older patients were more likely to have asthma. The resultant SOM model had low quantization error. The study concluded that Kohonen self-organizing maps provide effective classification models to study asthma outcomes, particularly when using multidimensional data. SO₂ was concluded to be an important pollutant that requires strict regulation, particularly where frail subpopulations such as the elderly may be at risk.