Cognitive Deficit in 7-Year-Old Children with Prenatal Exposure to Methylmercury
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Discussion
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Implication
Cohort study reveals cognitive deficits in children with prenatal methylmercury exposure, indicating neurodevelopmental damage occurs at exposure levels previously deemed safe.
Key Points
- To assess the long-term neurobehavioral and cognitive effects of prenatal methylmercury exposure in school-age children.
- Followed a birth cohort of 1,022 consecutive singleton births (1986–1987) in the Faroe Islands, measuring prenatal methylmercury exposure through umbilical cord blood and maternal hair concentrations.
- At approximately 7 years of age, 917 children underwent extensive clinical, neurophysiological, and neuropsychological testing covering language, attention, memory, visuospatial, and motor domains.
- Prenatal methylmercury exposure was significantly associated with neuropsychological dysfunction, most pronounced in language, attention, and memory domains, and to a lesser extent in visuospatial and motor performance.
- Associations remained robust after adjusting for confounders and restricting analyses to children with maternal hair mercury concentrations below 10 µg/g, even though routine clinical and neurophysiological exams showed no clear abnormalities.
Cite This Study
Grandjean et al. (1997) studied this question.