Tiny shards of plastic are increasingly infiltrating our brains, study says [Video]

Human brain samples collected at autopsy in early 2024 contained more tiny shards of plastic than samples collected eight years prior, according to a preprint posted online in May. A preprint is a study which has not yet been peer-reviewed and published in a journal.”The concentrations we saw in the brain tissue of normal individuals, who had an average age of around 45 or 50 years old, were 4,800 micrograms per gram, or 0.5% by weight,” said lead study author Matthew Campen, a regents’ professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque.”Compared to autopsy brain samples from 2016, that’s about 50% higher,” Campen said. “That would mean that our brains today are 99.5% brain and the rest is plastic.”Related video above: Research shows microplastics capable of carrying diseases that make us sickThat increase, however, only shows exposure and does not provide information about brain damage, said …