Brain damage and behavioural disorders in fish induced by plastic nanoparticles delivered through the food chain

By Karin Mattsson, Elyse V. Johnson, A. Malmendal, S. Linse, Lars-Anders Hansson, T. Cedervall. Scientific Reports, 2017

665 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The tremendous increases in production of plastic materials has led to an accumulation of plastic pollution worldwide. Many studies have addressed the physical effects of large-sized plastics on organisms, whereas few have focused on plastic nanoparticles, despite their distinct chemical, physical and mechanical properties. Hence our understanding of their effects on ecosystem function, behaviour and metabolism of organisms remains elusive. Here we demonstrate that plastic nanoparticles reduce survival of aquatic zooplankton and penetrate the blood-to-brain barrier in fish and cause behavioural disorders. Hence, for the first time, we uncover direct interactions between plastic nanoparticles and brain tissue, which is the likely mechanism behind the observed behavioural disorders in the top consumer. In a broader perspective, our findings demonstrate that plastic nanoparticles are transferred up through a food chain, enter the brain of the top consumer and affect its behaviour, thereby severely disrupting the function of natural ecosystems.

Subfields: Materials Chemistry, Pollution

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b736f4cd2c755d97c4cf95747602fe280027efaf

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In Pollution

1. Matthias C. Rillig
2. A. A. de Souza Machado
3. W. Kloas
4. M. Seeley
5. E. Zeng
6. Lei Mai
7. M. L. Guardia
8. R. Hale

Citations in the corpus

• A Global Perspective on Microplastics (2020, background): “Mattsson et al. (2017) found that nanoplastic particles (52–330 nm) reduced survival of zooplankton and altered behavior in finfish (measured as activity, feeding time, and distance swam in search of prey).”
• Microplastics as an emerging threat to terrestrial ecosystems (2018, background): “At least in fish, the arrival of nanoplastics to the brain was associated with behavioral changes (Mattsson et al., 2017).”
• Toxicity of Microplastics and Nanoplastics in Mammalian Systems (2020, background): “Nanoparticles found in fish brain • Changes in feeding time • Changes in brain morphology (gyri sizes) Mattsson et al., 2017 [68] Zebrafish (Danio rerio) PS NPs (50 nm, 1 mg/L) Accumulation in zebrafish larvae • Inhibited of larvae locomotion • Inhibited acetylcholinesterase activity • Upregulation…”
• A Review of Plastic-Associated Pressures: Cetaceans of the Mediterranean Sea and Eastern Australian Shearwaters as Case Studies (2018, background): “…items ingested by marine fauna range from millimeter to nanometer in size (i.e., micro- debris 1 µm-5mm and nano-plastics <1µm, GESAMP, 2016), this can lead to inflammation, damage of the tissues at the cellular level, or altered molecular pathways (Mattsson et al., 2015, 2017; Pedà et al., 2016) .”