The New York Times, 1 November 2025

What the Air You Breathe May Be Doing to Your Brain

Studies increasingly find links between higher concentrations of certain pollutants and the prevalence of dementia.

For years, the two patients had come to the Penn Memory Center at the University of Pennsylvania, where doctors and researchers follow people with cognitive impairment as they age, as well as a group with normal cognition.

Both patients, a man and a woman, had agreed to donate their brains after they died for further research. “An amazing gift,” said Dr. Edward Lee, the neuropathologist who directs the brain bank at the university’s Perelman School of Medicine. “They were both very dedicated to helping us understand Alzheimer’s disease.”