Tiny plastic shards and fibers were found in the nose tissue of human cadavers, according to a small new study. The threads and microplastic pieces were discovered in the olfactory bulb, the part of the nose responsible for detecting odors that sits at the base of the brain. “Once present in this structure, there can be translocation to other regions of the brain,” said lead study author Luís Fernando Amato-Lourenço, a postdoctoral microplastics researcher at the Free University of Berlin, in an email. “Translocation depends on several factors, including the shape of the particle, whether it is a fiber or a fragment, its size, and the body’s defense mechanisms.”
Due to their smaller size and shape, Amato-Lourenço added, particles are more likely than fibers to bypass microglia cells in the blood-brain barrier, a membrane that protects the brain and spinal cord from many harmful substances. “This is a really interesting study,” said Phoebe Stapleton, an associate professor of pharmacology and toxicology at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, who was not involved in the study. “I’m not really surprised,” Stapleton added. “I really do think that plastics are going to be in every place in the body that we look. This is just more evidence.” To read the full story.