Association between late‐life air pollution exposure and medial temporal lobe atrophy in older women

Ambient air pollution exposures increase the risk of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and related dementias, which may be driven by structural brain alterations in the medial temporal lobe (MTL). The MTL consists of subregions critical for memory and vulnerable to AD neuropathology, including the hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus (PHG), entorhinal cortex (ERC), and amygdala. However, previous structural MRI studies examining the hypothesized adverse effects of exposure on MTL were cross‐sectional and largely focused on hippocampus which yielded mixed results, failing to provide insights on the underlying neuropathological processes affected by air pollution exposures.