Stephens Richard, Sreenivasan Balraj
School of Psychology, Keele University, Staffordshire ST5 5BG, UK.
Arch Environ Health. 2004 Nov;59(11):566-74. doi: 10.1080/00039890409603435.
The health effects from prolonged low-level organophosphate exposure are unknown. We hypothesized that exposed individuals would show neuropsychological decrements when compared with unexposed individuals, and that cumulative organophosphate exposure would be correlated with neuropsychological performance. We used a quasiexperimental cross-sectional design to compare neuropsychological test scores among three groups: orchard sprayers exposed to organophosphates, and construction worker and pig farm workers who were not exposed. Relative to construction workers, orchard sprayers were significantly slower on negative statements of the syntactic reasoning test. However, we found no relationship between cumulative exposure and test response. The slower response of the orchard sprayers was apparently exposure-related, but we could not identify an underlying neurotoxic mechanism. Therefore, we are unable to conclude whether this is a specific cognitive effect, or a decrement arising on the most sensitive test employed.
长期低水平接触有机磷对健康的影响尚不清楚。我们假设，与未接触者相比，接触有机磷的个体神经心理功能会下降，且累积有机磷接触量与神经心理表现相关。我们采用了准实验性横断面设计，比较三组人群的神经心理测试得分：接触有机磷的果园喷洒工，以及未接触的建筑工人和养猪场工人。相对于建筑工人，果园喷洒工在句法推理测试的否定陈述部分明显更慢。然而，我们发现累积接触量与测试反应之间没有关系。果园喷洒工较慢的反应显然与接触有关，但我们无法确定潜在的神经毒性机制。因此，我们无法得出这是一种特定的认知效应，还是在所用最敏感测试中出现的功能下降的结论。
