Center for Imaging of Neurodegenerative Diseases, San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 4150 Clement Street, 114 M, San Francisco, CA 94121, USA.
Neurotoxicology. 2010 Sep;31(5):493-501. doi: 10.1016/j.neuro.2010.05.006. Epub 2010 May 24.
Potentially more than 100,000 US troops may have been exposed to the organophosphate chemical warfare agents sarin (GB) and cyclosarin (GF) when a munitions dump at Khamisiyah, Iraq was destroyed during the Gulf War (GW) in 1991. Although little is known about the long-term neurobehavioral or neurophysiological effects of low-dose exposure to GB/GF in humans, recent studies of GW veterans from the Devens Cohort suggest decrements in certain cognitive domains and atrophy in brain white matter occur individuals with higher estimated levels of presumed GB/GF exposure. The goal of the current study is to determine the generalizability of these findings in another cohort of GW veterans with suspected GB/GF exposure.
Neurobehavioral and imaging data collected in a study on Gulf War Illness between 2002 and 2007 were used in this study. We focused on the data of 40 GW-deployed veterans categorized as having been exposed to GB/GF at Khamisiyah, Iraq and 40 matched controls. Magnetic resonance images (MRI) of the brain were analyzed using automated and semi-automated image processing techniques that produced volumetric measurements of gray matter (GM), white matter (WM), cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) and hippocampus.
GW veterans with suspected GB/GF exposure had reduced total GM and hippocampal volumes compared to their unexposed peers (p< or =0.01). Although there were no group differences in measures of cognitive function or total WM volume, there were significant, positive correlations between total WM volume and measures of executive function and visuospatial abilities in veterans with suspected GB/GF exposure.
These findings suggest that low-level exposure to GB/GF can have deleterious effects on brain structure and brain function more than decade later.
1991 年海湾战争期间，伊拉克的哈米斯米亚弹药库被摧毁，可能有超过 10 万名美国士兵接触到有机磷化学战剂沙林（GB）和梭曼（GF）。尽管人们对人类接触低剂量 GB/GF 后的长期神经行为或神经生理学影响知之甚少，但对德文斯队列中海湾战争退伍军人的最近研究表明，在某些认知领域出现了衰退，并且大脑白质出现了萎缩在那些估计有更高水平的假定 GB/GF 暴露的个体中。目前这项研究的目的是确定在另一批具有疑似 GB/GF 暴露的海湾战争退伍军人中，这些发现是否具有普遍性。
在 2002 年至 2007 年期间进行的海湾战争疾病研究中收集了神经行为和成像数据，本研究使用了这些数据。我们重点研究了被归类为在伊拉克哈米斯米亚接触过 GB/GF 的 40 名海湾战争部署退伍军人和 40 名匹配对照者的研究数据。使用自动和半自动图像处理技术对大脑的磁共振图像（MRI）进行了分析，这些技术产生了灰质（GM）、白质（WM）、脑脊液（CSF）和海马体的容积测量值。
与未暴露的同龄人相比，疑似接触过 GB/GF 的海湾战争退伍军人的总 GM 和海马体体积减少（p<或=0.01）。尽管在认知功能或总 WM 体积方面没有组间差异，但在疑似接触过 GB/GF 的退伍军人中，总 WM 体积与执行功能和视空间能力的测量值之间存在显著的正相关。
这些发现表明，在十多后，低水平接触 GB/GF 会对大脑结构和功能产生有害影响。
