Mice Following Exposure to Agricultural Dust
Category: Research Poster
Author(s): Jade White, Nathan Klepper, Alissa Threatt, Tara Gries
Presenter(s): Jade White
Mentors(s): Julie Moreno
Routine exposure to organic agricultural dust (OD) has led to a higher chance in developing chronic lung inflammatory diseases. Previous research has confirmed that the same agricultural dust exposure that causes inflammation in the lungs is linked to an increased risk of developing dementia. In our previous study we found a rise in microglial inflammation. It is well known that gliosis can occur in parallel with a change in cognitive ability. Therefore, we hypothesized that mice exposed to OD would have a loss in cognition compared to the mice saline exposed mice. Here we investigated the cognitive modulation of mice after OD or saline exposure. Mice who have been exposed to the OD were exposed nasally and oranpharangial, then monitored over the course of eight weeks. Using novel object recognition. A finding that our current preliminary data may support that there is not a notable difference from our baseline to the week 8 of our experiment comparing the OD exposed mice and the mice who were not exposed. We will also take the study further by examining the brains and lungs from these mice to determine the OD impact on the lung brain axis and the inflammation ensued. This study will allow for a deeper understanding of cognitive loss following OD exposure and correlate this to the systemic inflammation from damaging the lungs.