Caution: nanofibers!

FEFU scientists: carbon nanofibers negatively affect cognitive activity

Anna Leontieva, FEFU Press Center

Scientists of the Far Eastern Federal University came to the conclusion that carbon nanofibers reduce behavioral functions and cognitive activity. FEFU employees presented the results of the research conducted on this topic at the congress of the European Society of Toxicologists Eurotox-2016 in Spain. Kirill Golokhvast, Deputy Director of the School of Natural Sciences, Head of the Scientific and Educational Center "Nanotechnology" of the Engineering School, and Valery Chernyshev, Senior Lecturer of the Department of Oil and Gas Engineering and Petrochemistry, spoke at the world's largest toxicology scientific forum from FEFU.

According to Kirill Golokhvast, FEFU scientists in partnership with colleagues from Greece, Turkey, Moscow, Novosibirsk and Blagoveshchensk conducted a pioneering study at the junction of nanotoxicology and neurophysiology. In the laboratory for a month, they studied the effect of artificially created carbon nanofibers on the physiology of the higher nervous activity of experimental animals (rats).

"Unlike nanotubes, nanofibers are still a very poorly studied type of particles, and their effect on nervous activity has not been studied before us in principle. In the human environment, nanofibers are contained in large quantities, for example, in soot after forest fires and in automobile exhaust gases," Kirill Golokhvast explained. – The data obtained based on the results of tests and analyses showed that the impact of carbon nanofibers on the body leads to a decrease in behavioral functions and cognitive activity. This allows us to conclude that the depression, stress, apathy of residents of large cities is a consequence, among other things, of the constant presence of nanoparticles of various origins in the air."

It should be added that the research is supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation, and the results in the form of abstracts have already been published in the journal "Toxicology Letters" (impact factor 3.522). The authors plan to present more detailed information about their work in several leading international publications by the end of the year.

Eurotox-2016 was held in early September in Seville, Spain with the participation of 1,200 scientists from 61 countries. In the spring of this year, Kirill Golokhvast was among the first Russian scientists to be accepted into the largest professional association of toxicologists. The society is headed by Aristides Tsatsakis, who is the chief researcher of the Center for Nanotechnology of the FEFU and directs a large scientific project to study the impact of car exhaust gases on the ecology of a modern city.

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru  15.09.2016