Common Pesticide Linked To Widespread Brain Abnormalities In Children

alternative_right shares a report from ScienceAlert: The insecticide chlorpyrifos is a powerful tool for controlling various pests, making it one of the most widely used pesticides during the latter half of the 20th century. Like many pesticides, however, chlorpyrifos lacks precision. In addition to harming non-target insects like bees, it has also been linked to health risks for much larger animals -- including us. Now, a new US study suggests those risks may begin before birth. Humans exposed to chlorpyrifos prenatally are more likely to exhibit structural brain abnormalities and reduced motor functions in childhood and adolescence.

Progressively higher prenatal exposure to chlorpyrifos was associated with incrementally greater deviations in brain structure, function, and metabolism in children and teens, the researchers found, along with poorer measures of motor speed and motor programming. This supports previous research linking chlorpyrifos with impaired cognitive function and brain development, but these findings are the first evidence of widespread and long-lasting molecular, cellular, and metabolic effects in the brain. 'The disturbances in brain tissue and metabolism that we observed with prenatal exposure to this one pesticide were remarkably widespread throughout the brain,' says first author Bradley Peterson, a developmental neuroscientist at the University of Southern California's Keck School of Medicine. Senior author Virginia Rauh added: 'It is vitally important that we continue to monitor the levels of exposure in potentially vulnerable populations, especially in pregnant women in agricultural communities, as their infants continue to be at risk.'

The report notes that the EPA banned residential use of chlorpyrifos in 2001 but the pesticide is still used in agriculture around the world.

The findings have been published in the journal JAMA Neurology.

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