New research from the Netherlands provides compelling evidence that early exposure to air pollution can disrupt brain development, with potential consequences for emotional and cognitive functioning throughout adolescence.
This is the latest evidence that air pollution isn’t just a respiratory hazard – it is quietly altering how the brain functions as children grow. In a groundbreaking study, researchers from the Generation R Study examined how early-life exposure to five common traffic-related air pollutants affects resting-state brain activity, offering one of the clearest pictures yet of how polluted air early in life can shape the adolescent brain, years later.1
A Deep Look at Brain Connectivity
The Generation R study is examining subjects from “[fetal] life until young adulthood in a multi-ethnic urban population. The study is designed to identify early environmental and genetic causes of normal and abnormal growth, development and health from [fetal] life until young adulthood.”2
The team analyzed data from 3,626 participants, using over 4,600 functional MRI (fMRI) scans collected between ages 9-12 and again at 13-16. They focused on functional connectivity, or how different brain regions coordinate and communicate during rest. This is like measuring how well the brain’s different “teams” talk to each other when you’re not actively doing a task – something that gives researchers clues about mental and emotional processing.
They looked at 13 cortical networks (brain surface regions that handle everything from sight and sound to decision-making) and three subcortical areas, including the amygdala, a deep-brain structure central to emotional processing.
Two Exposure Windows That Matter
Researchers assessed pollution exposure during two timeframes:
- From birth to age 3 – a period of intense brain growth.
- The year before the first scan (ages 8-11) – when kids are entering pre-adolescence and shifting into more complex thinking and social behaviors.
What They Found
Children exposed to higher levels of air pollution – particularly fine particulate matter (PM2.5) and coarse particulate matter (PM10) – showed altered connectivity between key brain regions.
Early-life PM2.5 exposure (birth to age 3) was linked to:
- Lower connectivity between the amygdala and three brain networks:
- Ventral attention network – helps us notice and react to unexpected stimuli (like someone calling your name).
- Somatomotor hand network – tied to movement and touch, especially using hands.
- Auditory network – processes sound and spoken language.
Recent PM10 exposure (within a year of the first scan, ages 8-11) was linked to:
- Reduced connectivity between:
- The salience network – detects what’s important in our environment and helps shift our attention.
- The medial-parietal network – helps us think about ourselves, our past, and how we fit into the world (sometimes called part of the “default mode network”).
Why These Brain Functions Matter
Let’s break down what each of these brain systems does – and why it’s a big deal if they aren’t connecting properly:
- Amygdala: Think of it as the brain’s emotional alarm system. It helps us recognize threats, regulate fear and anger, and connect emotions to memories. If its communication with other networks is off, it could affect how a child processes stress or manages emotions.3
- Ventral Attention Network: Helps you snap to attention when something important or unexpected happens (like a car horn or a teacher calling on you). Weak connections here could mean more difficulty focusing or reacting appropriately to the environment.4
- Somatomotor Hand Network: Involved in physical actions, especially hand movements, and interpreting touch. Disruption here could affect fine motor skills or sensory integration.5
- Auditory Network: Processes everything you hear, from music to language. Impaired connectivity could impact language development, communication skills, or sound sensitivity.6
- Salience Network: Acts like a switchboard, helping the brain decide what’s important. It toggles between focusing outward (on the world) and inward (on thoughts). Disruptions can affect how kids shift attention or manage social interactions – something seen in anxiety and ADHD.7
- Medial-Parietal (Default Mode) Network: This is active when we daydream, reflect on ourselves, or recall memories. It’s also key for imagining other people’s perspectives. Weak connectivity here can impact empathy, social awareness, or emotional insight.8
A Long-Term Shift in Brain Development
As kids grow, their brain networks typically become more connected, allowing for smoother communication between regions. But in this study, children with higher air pollution exposure showed the opposite trend – less connectivity over time, especially in emotional and social processing areas. That means air pollution may be stalling or derailing normal brain development during critical stages.
This matters not just for how kids feel emotionally, but how they learn, behave, and interact with others.
Air Pollution’s Impact on Cognitive Performance
This growing body of evidence is part of a larger wave of research establishing the critical connection between air pollution and cognitive development in children. While past studies have focused on long-term neurological risks such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, we’re now seeing more immediate academic impacts as well.
Research out of Mexico City showed that children exposed to high levels of pollution exhibited cognitive deficiencies – even without any known genetic predisposition – suggesting environmental factors alone can hinder brain development.9
This aligns with findings from Barcelona, where researchers discovered that students attending schools near heavy traffic showed significantly less cognitive improvement over a single school year compared to their peers in less polluted areas.10
These impacts aren’t just theoretical. A Massachusetts study estimated that nearly 2 million Performance IQ points were lost in a single year among young children due to exposure to PM2.5 air pollution, even in areas that met current standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency. These losses are linked not just to school performance but to long-term outcomes such as graduation rates and earning potential.11
Taken together, these studies confirm what educators and healthcare professionals have long suspected: cleaner air supports clearer minds.
Clean Air Makes a Difference – At Home and in Childcare Settings
The good news? You can take steps to reduce air pollution exposure indoors, where children spend most of their time.
Installing an Austin Air Purifier in your home is one of the most effective ways to protect growing brains from airborne pollutants. Austin Air’s medical-grade HEPA and activated carbon filtration systems are specifically designed to remove the types of fine and ultrafine particles – like PM2.5 – that were linked to disrupted brain connectivity in this study.
And it’s not just for homes. Adding air purifiers to day care centers, early childhood classrooms, and preschools is an important public health intervention. Recent research has shown that air purifiers in child care settings reduce the spread of airborne illness and improve overall indoor air quality – benefits that go far beyond respiratory health.
Now, with this new research connecting air pollution to long-term brain development, the case for clean air in early childhood environments has never been stronger.
Takeaway: Protecting Developing Brains Starts with the Air They Breathe
This study adds to growing evidence that air pollution affects more than breathing – it can rewire the developing brain. Emotional regulation, social skills, focus, and sensory processing may all be shaped, in part, by the air kids grow up breathing.
Let’s make sure that air is as clean and safe as possible – at home, at school, and wherever children learn and grow. These environments are foundational to a child’s cognitive and emotional growth, and ensuring clean air in these spaces can help support better learning outcomes, reduce absenteeism, and protect long-term brain health.
REFERENCES
1 Kusters MSW, Granés L, Petricola S, et al. (2025 February). Exposure to residential air pollution and the development of functional connectivity of brain networks throughout adolescence. Envi Int, Vol 196; 109245. doi 10.1016/j.envint.2024.109245.
2 Researchers. (2025 April 10). Generation R. https://generationr.nl/researchers/.
3 Brain anatomy and how the brain works. (2025 April 4). Johns Hopkins Medicine. https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/anatomy-of-the-brain.
4 Bernard F, Lemee JM, Mazerand E, et al. (2020 June 24). The ventral attention network: the mirror of the language network in the right brain hemisphere. J Anat, 237(4):632-642. doi: 10.1111/joa.13223.
5 Rassi YE, Handjaras G, Perciballi C, et al. (2024 August 7). A visual representation of the hand in the resting somatomotor regions of the human brain. Sci Rep, 14(1). doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-69248-z.
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8 Xu X, Yuan H, & Lei X. (2016 February 12). Activation and Connectivity within the Default Mode Network Contribute Independently to Future-Oriented Thought. Scientific Reports, 6(1). doi 10.1038/srep21001.
9 Calderón-Garcidueñas L, Mora-Tiscareño A, Ontiveros E, et al. (2008 June 11). Air pollution, cognitive deficits and brain abnormalities: a pilot study with children and dogs. Brain Cogn, 68(2): 117-27. doi: 10.1016/j.bandc.2008.04.008.
10 Sunyer J, Esnaola M, Alvarez-Pedrerol M, et al. (2015 March 3). Association between traffic-related air pollution in schools and cognitive development in primary school children: a prospective cohort study. PLoS Med. 12(3): e1001792. doi: 10.1371/journal.pmed.1001792.
11 Landrigan PJ, Fisher S, Kenny ME, et al. (2022 July 18). A replicable strategy for mapping air pollution’s community-level health impacts and catalyzing prevention. Environ Health. 21, 70. doi: 10.1186/s12940-022-00879-3.
