Heart rate variability, electrodermal activity and cognition in adults: Association with short-term indoor PM2.5 exposure in a real-world intervention study.

Autor: Zhou J; UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering (IEDE), The Bartlett, University College London (UCL), Central House, 14 Upper Woburn Place, London, WC1H 0NN, UK. Electronic address: jiaxu.zhou.19@ucl.ac.uk., Huebner G; UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering (IEDE), The Bartlett, University College London (UCL), Central House, 14 Upper Woburn Place, London, WC1H 0NN, UK., Liu KY; Division of Psychiatry, University College London (UCL), 149 Tottenham Court Road, London, W1T 7NF, UK., Ucci M; UCL Institute for Environmental Design and Engineering (IEDE), The Bartlett, University College London (UCL), Central House, 14 Upper Woburn Place, London, WC1H 0NN, UK.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Environmental research [Environ Res] 2024 Dec 15; Vol. 263 (Pt 3), pp. 120245. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Oct 28.
DOI: 10.1016/j.envres.2024.120245
Abstrakt: Background: Long-term effects of ambient fine particulate matter (PM2.5) exposure on mortality and morbidity are well established. The study aims to evaluate how short-term indoor PM2.5 exposure affects physiological responses and understand potential mechanisms mediating the cognitive outcomes in working-age adults.
Methods: This real-world randomized single-blind crossover intervention study was conducted in an urban office setting, with desk-based air purifiers used as the intervention. Participants (N = 40) were exposed to average PM2.5 levels of 18.0 μg/m3 in control and 3.7 μg/m3 in intervention conditions. Cognitive tests, heart rate variability (HRV), and electrodermal activity (EDA) measures were conducted after 5 h of exposure. Self-reported mental effort, exhaustion, and task difficulty were collected after the cognitive tests.
Results: Participants in the intervention condition had significantly higher HRV during cognitive testing, particularly in the standard deviation of normal-to-normal intervals (SDNN), root mean square of successive differences (RMSSD), and high-frequency power (HF) indices. Mediation analysis revealed that elevated PM2.5 exposure reduced HRV indices, which mediated the effect on two executive function-related cognitive skills out of 16 assessed skills. No significant differences were found in EDA, self-reported task difficulty, or exhaustion, but self-reported mental effort was higher in the control condition.
Conclusions: Lower indoor PM2.5 level was associated with reduced mental effort and higher HRV during cognitive testing. Furthermore, the association between indoor PM2.5 exposure and executive function might be mediated through cardiovagal responses. These findings provide insights on the mechanisms through which fine particle exposure adversely affects the autonomic nervous system and how this in turn affects cognition. The potential cardiovascular and cognitive health benefits of PM2.5 reduction warrants further research.
Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
(Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)
Databáze: MEDLINE
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