suggests that dirty air changes how humans react to stress, too. Several dozen men living in Berlin had to perform complicated math calculations in front of a panel of very critical judges , while other researchers performed functional magnetic resonance imaging on their brains. The scientists found that brains of those men who live in areas more polluted with PM2.
The good news, experts say, is that there are some ways to protect yourself from the brain-damaging effects of air pollution, especially if it’s only temporarily elevated by wildfire smoke. “Stay indoors if possible and use air filters,” Wennberg says, adding that well-fitting N95 or KN95 masks should “filter out most of the PM2.5.” The bad news is that some climate change models predict that PM2.5 pollution levels caused by wildfiresExperts predict that a warming world will bring more wildfires, more orange-hued skies enveloping our cities and, likely, more mental health problems.