Environmental Pollutants and Neurological Disorders

  • STATUS
    Recruiting
  • End date
    Aug 1, 2027
  • participants needed
    500
  • sponsor
    Beijing Tiantan Hospital
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Updated on 12 September 2025
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Accepts healthy volunteers

Summary

Environmental pollutants have emerged as a major global health concern, with growing evidence linking exposure to both traditional contaminants such as heavy metals (lead, mercury, cadmium, arsenic) and novel pollutants-including micro- and nanoplastics, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), antibiotics, and endocrine-disrupting chemicals-to adverse neurological outcomes. These pollutants can cross or disrupt the blood-brain barrier, accumulate in neural tissue, and trigger oxidative stress, inflammation, epigenetic modifications, and metabolic reprogramming.

Brain tumours and cerebrovascular diseases represent two major categories of neurosurgical disorders with high morbidity and mortality. However, their interaction with environmental pollutant exposure remains poorly understood. Recent studies suggest that pollutant-induced molecular alterations, such as aberrant DNA methylation, lipid metabolism disruption, and neurovascular endothelial dysfunction, may contribute to tumour initiation, malignant progression, aneurysm formation, and stroke occurrence.

Given the increasing human exposure to these pollutants and the lack of large-scale clinical data, it is urgent to establish a systematic investigation in neurosurgical patients. This study aims to profile pollutant exposure (heavy metals, PFAS, microplastics, and other novel contaminants) using multi-biospecimen analysis (blood, urine, hair, tumour and peri-tumour tissues), and to explore their mechanistic links to the pathogenesis of brain tumours and cerebrovascular diseases. The findings are expected to provide new evidence for understanding environment-brain interactions and to identify potential biomarkers for disease risk stratification and prevention.

Details
Condition Cerebrovascular Disorders, Brain Tumours, Alzheimer Dementia
Age 18years or above
Clinical Study IdentifierNCT07140601
SponsorBeijing Tiantan Hospital
Last Modified on12 September 2025

Eligibility

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Inclusion Criteria

years of age or older
Able to give informed consent to participate in the research

Exclusion Criteria

Refusal to participate
Pregnant or breastfeeding woman
Clear my responses
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