Please find the abstract for this month’s SOCAAR seminar attached.
Cardiovascular Health and Urban Air Pollution:
The Temporal Evolution of Vascular Responses to Size Fractioned Particulate
Matter
Dr. Bruce Urch
Research Associate, Gage Occupational and Environmental Health Unit
Dr. Krystal Godri Pollitt
Research Fellow, Chemical Engineering and Applied Chemistry
The risk for heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular mortality is increased by
exposure to gaseous and particulate air pollutants. Brief pollutant exposures at
environmentally relevant concentrations can rapidly trigger arterial narrowing
and increase blood pressure via changes in the autonomic nervous system.
Pollutant induced oxidative stress/ inflammation has also been suggested to
acutely impair blood vessel function. Although our understanding of the
pollutant mediated mechanism for cardiovascular changes has improved, the
specific physical and chemical characteristics of ambient pollutants driving
responses remains unclear.
This seminar will examine the effect of human exposure to concentrated real-
world urban air particulate in a controlled laboratory on blood flow and the
autonomic nervous system. We will discuss the time course of response
evolution from real-time physiologic changes during exposure to impairments
which manifest post-exposure. These cardiac responses will be further
discussed with respect to particle composition including organic carbon, metals,
and black carbon. The effect of different urban particulate size fractions
(ultrafine, fine, coarse) on the healthy human vasculature will also be
presented.
January 9, 2013, 3 - 4 pm
Wallberg Building, 200 College Street, Room 407
This seminar will be recorded and be available after the talk at the following
site:
http://www.socaar.utoronto.ca/collaboration/SOCAAR_Seminar_Series.htm
Recordings of past SOCAAR seminars can also be found here.
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