Curran Jason, Cliff Rachel, Sinnen Nadine, Koehle Michael, Carlsten Chris
School of Population and Public Health, Faculty of Medicine, University of British Columbia, 2206 E Mall, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z9 Canada.
Department of Medicine, Division of Respiratory Medicine, Chan-Yeung Centre for Occupational and Environmental Respiratory Disease, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.
J Occup Med Toxicol. 2018 Jan 8;13:2. doi: 10.1186/s12995-017-0182-5. eCollection 2018.
Recent epidemiological evidence connects ambient air pollutants to adverse neurobehavioural effects in adults. In animal models, subchronic controlled exposures to diesel exhaust (DE) have also showed evidence of neuroinflammation. Evidence suggests that DE not only affects outcomes commonly associated with cognitive dysfunction, but also balance impairment. We conducted a controlled human exposure experiment with 28 healthy subjects (average age = 28 years (SD = 7.1; range = 21-49); and 40% female) who were exposed to two conditions, filtered air (FA) and DE (300 μg PM2.5/m3) for 120 min, in a double-blinded crossover study with randomized exposures separated by four weeks. Postural stability was assessed by the Balance Error Scoring System (BESS), a brief, easily-administered test of static balance. The BESS consists of a sequence of three stances performed on two surfaces. With hands on hips and eyes closed, each stance is held for 20 s. "Error" points are awarded for deviations from those stances. Pre- and immediately post-exposure BESS "error" point totals were calculated and the difference between the two timepoints were compared for each of the two exposure conditions. A mixed effect model assessed the significance of the association. While our data demonstrates a trend of reduced postural stability in response to exposure to DE, exposure was not significantly associated with BESS value. This is the first study to investigate changes in postural stability as a result of exposure to DE in human subjects.
近期的流行病学证据表明，环境空气污染物与成年人不良的神经行为效应有关。在动物模型中，亚慢性控制暴露于柴油尾气（DE）也显示出神经炎症的证据。有证据表明，DE不仅会影响通常与认知功能障碍相关的结果，还会导致平衡受损。我们进行了一项有28名健康受试者（平均年龄 = 28岁（标准差 = 7.1；范围 = 21 - 49岁）；40%为女性）参与的对照人体暴露实验，在一项双盲交叉研究中，受试者被随机分为两组，分别暴露于过滤空气（FA）和DE（300μg PM2.5/m³）环境中120分钟，两次暴露之间间隔四周。通过平衡误差评分系统（BESS）评估姿势稳定性，这是一种简单易行的静态平衡测试。BESS包括在两个表面上进行的一系列三种姿势。双手叉腰、双眼闭合，每个姿势保持20秒。偏离这些姿势会被扣分。计算暴露前和暴露后即刻的BESS“误差”总分，并比较两种暴露条件下两个时间点的差异。采用混合效应模型评估关联的显著性。虽然我们的数据表明，暴露于DE后姿势稳定性有下降趋势，但暴露与BESS值并无显著关联。这是第一项研究人类受试者暴露于DE后姿势稳定性变化的研究。
