The AirPollBrain Group

The AirPollBrain (APB) Group aims to promote the optimal neurodevelopment in humans and healthy brain aging by better understanding environmental effects of urban air pollution and gene-environment interactions. The APB group developed from a core of USC’s leadership in urban environmental health research in the Los Angeles Basin, with collaborating institutions. Taking a multi-disciplinary research, APB addresses effects of environmental pollution on the brain across the lifespan.

APB is pursuing five main goals:

  1. Identify environmental risk factors impacting brain health in human populations with different environmental settings and genetic backgrounds
  2. Develop experimental paradigms relevant to human studies and public health interventions
  3. Integrate the existing environmental, neurosciences, and public health sciences programs at USC
  4. Provide the best sciences to support evidence-based regulations to protect the public’s health
  5. Create resources for training and education in interdisciplinary environmental health sciences from basic environmental biology to societal levels of analysis