Trends and prospects in experimental neurotoxicology.

Abstract

Trends and prospects in experimental neurotoxicology.by Savolainen H This article in PubMed: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6648421Scand j work environ health 9 (1983) [214][215][216][217][218] Trends and prospects in experimental neurotoxicologyby Heikki Savolainen, MD SAVOLAINEN H. Trends and prospects in experimental neurotoxicology. Scand j work environ health 9 (1983) [214][215][216][217][218]. A brief survey is given of the neurotoxic mechanisms of selected industrial compounds. They can be divided for practical purposes into hypoxic or histotoxic mechanisms, reactive metabolite-mediated mechanisms and effects related to the accumulated burden. It is clear that this classification is not necessarily valid for the developing nervous system. Therefore, it is suggested that complete test systems for neurotoxic effects should also include prenatal and neonatal exposure. This inclusion is even more important because a significant proportion of embryotoxic or teratogenic effects are related to deleterious changes in the nervous system. An understanding of these developmental effects should also help in the design of epidemiologic studies.Key words: fetal and developmental toxicity, industrial neurotoxins, neurotoxicity test systems.Poisoning episodes have brought about the importance of neurotoxicology as an independent discipline which would have lessened the deleterious effects of thalidomide in Central Europe (37), of methylmercury in Iraq (2), Canada (62) or Japan (12), of allylchloride in China (20), or of clioquinoline in Japan (59) and Europe (3).Experimental neurotoxicology has aided in the elucidation of the mechanism of pathogenesis in the occupational neuropathies in exposure to carbon disulfide or hexacarbon ketones or hexane [for a review see an earlier report (53) Behavior is an important product of the brain, and yet the nervous system also controls and maintains many other organ systems by endocrinologic means, by direct innervation and electric stimulation, or through the so-called trophic control by modulatory protein molecules delivered directly and specifically to the appropriate cells. The nervous system also actively participates in the control of development and maturation in the fetal and early postnatal period.I t is the aim of this treatise to present some of the key issues and try to outline future trends for test systems based on the newer advances in the neurosciences. These methods are hopefully more powerful in the detection of toxic effects. Aspects of neurotoxic mechanisms in the adult nervous systemThe nervous system is vulnerable to the deprivation of oxygen and to the histotoxic or hypoxemic effects of hydrogen sulfide (53), hydrogen cyanide (64), carbon monoxide (65), and formic acid (55,66,67).The acutely intoxicating effects of inhaled solvent vapors are known to those engaged in producing paints, glues and lacquers or applying solvent-based coatings or operating degreasing installations. It seems that the inhaled lipophilic molecules are rapidly carried to the nervous sy...