Rodrigues A R, Souza C R B, Braga A M, Rodrigues P S S, Silveira A T, Damin E T B, Côrtes M I T, Castro A J O, Mello G A, Vieira J L F, Pinheiro M C N, Ventura D F, Silveira L C L
Departamento de Fisiologia, Universidade Federal do Pará, 66055 Belém, Pará (PA), Brazil.
Braz J Med Biol Res. 2007 Mar;40(3):415-24. doi: 10.1590/s0100-879x2007000300018.
We measured visual performance in achromatic and chromatic spatial tasks of mercury-exposed subjects and compared the results with norms obtained from healthy individuals of similar age. Data were obtained for a group of 28 mercury-exposed subjects, comprising 20 Amazonian gold miners, 2 inhabitants of Amazonian riverside communities, and 6 laboratory technicians, who asked for medical care. Statistical norms were generated by testing healthy control subjects divided into three age groups. The performance of a substantial proportion of the mercury-exposed subjects was below the norms in all of these tasks. Eleven of 20 subjects (55%) performed below the norms in the achromatic contrast sensitivity task. The mercury-exposed subjects also had lower red-green contrast sensitivity deficits at all tested spatial frequencies (9/11 subjects; 81%). Three gold miners and 1 riverine (4/19 subjects, 21%) performed worse than normal subjects making more mistakes in the color arrangement test. Five of 10 subjects tested (50%), comprising 2 gold miners, 2 technicians, and 1 riverine, performed worse than normal in the color discrimination test, having areas of one or more MacAdam ellipse larger than normal subjects and high color discrimination thresholds at least in one color locus. These data indicate that psychophysical assessment can be used to quantify the degree of visual impairment of mercury-exposed subjects. They also suggest that some spatial tests such as the measurement of red-green chromatic contrast are sufficiently sensitive to detect visual dysfunction caused by mercury toxicity.
我们测量了汞暴露受试者在非彩色和彩色空间任务中的视觉表现，并将结果与从年龄相仿的健康个体获得的标准值进行比较。数据来自一组28名汞暴露受试者，包括20名亚马逊金矿工人、2名亚马逊河畔社区居民以及6名寻求医疗护理的实验室技术人员。通过对分为三个年龄组的健康对照受试者进行测试得出统计标准值。在所有这些任务中，相当一部分汞暴露受试者的表现低于标准值。在20名受试者中，有11名（55%）在非彩色对比敏感度任务中的表现低于标准值。在所有测试的空间频率下，汞暴露受试者的红-绿对比敏感度缺陷也更低（9/11名受试者；81%）。三名金矿工人和一名河畔居民（4/19名受试者，21%）在颜色排列测试中比正常受试者表现更差，犯错更多。在接受测试的10名受试者中，有5名（50%），包括2名金矿工人、2名技术人员和1名河畔居民，在颜色辨别测试中的表现比正常受试者差，其一个或多个麦克亚当椭圆区域大于正常受试者，并且至少在一个颜色位点上有高颜色辨别阈值。这些数据表明，心理物理学评估可用于量化汞暴露受试者的视觉损伤程度。它们还表明，一些空间测试，如红-绿颜色对比测量，对检测汞毒性引起的视觉功能障碍足够敏感。
