18. All Around the Brain: Interplay Between the Brain and its Environment

The brain does not function in isolation and there is a growing body of knowledge about the impact of environmental and social challenges on brain health. Air and water pollution, and exposure to plastics, heavy metals, and other toxic substances have a bearing on the brain. Similarly, the impact of inequality and disparity in income, education, and access to healthcare is significant. There is merit in studying the exposome, that is all exposures individuals encounter throughout their lifetime. In this episode of NeuroCentury, Paweł Świeboda talks to Prof. Agustin Ibáñez, Director of the Latin American Brain Health Institute at Universidad Adolfo Ibáñez and Professor in Global Brain Health at Trinity College Dublin. Agustin is the main author of a recent paper in Neuron on “Neuroecological links of the exposome and One Health”  He is founder and codirector of the ReDLat consortium aimed at fighting dementia collaboratively. The conversation explores Agustin’s work on the environmental and social exposome, including how it can accelerate brain aging. The brain clock does not tick in a universal, linear fashion but instead captures the entropic, transient nature of time, Agustin says. It ages differently depending on the environment in which it is embedded. Interventions need to be tailored accordingly, but they inevitably have to be long-term and multi-level, given the interrelationship between impacts.  NeuroCentury.com  Music for the NeuroCentury podcast is composed by Rafał Kulczycki