ReviewSports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.)2014
Physical activity, air pollution and the brain.
Review in Sports medicine (Auckland, N.Z.), 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Outdoor Physical Activity in an Air Polluted Environment and Its Effect on the Cardiovascular System-A Systematic Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Pooled it
- Associations of long-term PMBMC public health · 2026Article
- Air pollution and cognitive function: the potential protective effect of physical activity.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Investigating Syndemic Effects of Air Pollution and Physical Inactivity on Cognitive Decline in Older Adults.Journal of physical activity & health · 2025Article
- Role and Functions of Irisin: A Perspective on Recent Developments and Neurodegenerative Diseases.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- Review
- The impact of atmospheric pollutants on the physical health of college students--based on physical examination data of college students from a certain university in Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, China.Frontiers in public health · 2025Article
- The Effect of Long-Term Particulate Matter Exposure on Respiratory Mortality: Cohort Study in China.JMIR public health and surveillance · 2024Article
- Polyphenols: Secondary Metabolites with a Biological Impression.Nutrients · 2024Review
- Article
- Epigenetics as a link between environmental factors and dementia risk.Journal of Alzheimer's disease reports · 2024Review
- The Contribution of Environmental Science to Mental Health Research: A Scoping Review.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2023Article
- Acute Effects of Sprint Interval Training and Chronic Effects of Polarized Training (Sprint Interval Training, High Intensity Interval Training, and Endurance Training) on Choice Reaction Time in Mountain Bike Cyclists.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Article
- Visual responses of patients with generalized anxiety disorder who cycling in the virtual sportscapes with different tree cover densities.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2022Article
- Physical Exercise in the Context of Air Pollution: An Emerging Research Topic.Frontiers in physiology · 2022Review
- Examining air pollution (PMScientific reports · 2021Article
- Physical activity in an air-polluted environment: behavioral, psychological and neuroimaging protocol for a prospective cohort study (Healthy Aging in Industrial Environment study - Program 4).BMC public health · 2021Article
- Reaction of the Organisms of Young Football Players to City Smog in the Sports Training.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2020Article
- Effects of Cardiorespiratory Exercise on Cognition in Older Women Exposed to Air Pollution.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
This review introduces an emerging research field that is focused on studying the effect of exposure to air pollution during exercise on cognition, with specific attention to the impact on concentrations of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and inflammatory markers. It has been repeatedly demonstrated that regular physical activity enhances cognition, and evidence suggests that BDNF, a neurotrophin, plays a key role in the mechanism. Today, however, air pollution is an environmental problem worldwide and the high traffic density, especially in urban environments and cities, is a major cause of this problem. During exercise, the intake of air pollution increases considerably due to an increased ventilation rate and particle deposition fraction. Recently, air pollution exposure has been linked to adverse effects on the brain such as cognitive decline and neuropathology. Inflammation and oxidative stress seem to play an important role in inducing these health effects. We believe that there is a need to investigate whether the well-known benefits of regular physical activity on the brain also apply when physical activity is performed in polluted air. We also report our findings about exercising in an environment with ambient levels of air pollutants. Based on the latter results, we hypothesize that traffic-related air pollution exposure during exercise may inhibit the positive effect of exercise on cognition.
Indexed as
Identifiers
25119155What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.