Pollutants & The Brain
Service
Our service commitment involved volunteering for the West Atlanta Watershed Alliance. In an effort to support environmental stewardship in Southwest Atlanta, we worked on building and maintenance of trails, restoring the habitat and eradicating invasive plants. Check out West Atlanta Watershed Alliance website for volunteering opportunities and more information: https://www.wawa-online.org/
Neuroscience
In our neuroscience meetings, we focused on lead toxicity and air pollution. Our discussions involved whether CDC recommendations on lead toxicity levels are accurate, what therapeutics are available for lead toxicity (e.g. chelation), and their effectiveness. We also discussed what the research community should focus on — understanding the effects of lead toxicity, especially from an epigenetics perspective, or finding therapeutics. We talked about how much is known about the effects of air pollution, specifically ambient particulate matter, on the emergence of neurological disorders. Below are the research articles we have reviewed.
Policy
For our policy and advocacy efforts, we hosted a month long Earth Day Challenge within our the Neuroscience Institute where we encouraged labs to make their practices "greener." The eco-friendly lab practices included closing fume hoods, unplugging and powering down devices not in use, defrosting freezers and cleaning coils, and sharing reagents that are about to expire between labs to avoid throwing them away.
