Neurobehavioral testing of subjects exposed residentially to groundwater contaminated from an aluminum die-casting plant and local referents.

Residents adjoining a die-casting plant had excessive headaches, numbness of hands and feet, dizziness, blurred vision, staggering, sweating, abnormal heart rhythm, and depression, which led to measurements of neurobehavioral performance, affective status, and the frequency of symptoms. They had all been exposed via well water and proximity to the plant to volatile organic chemicals (VOC) and to polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The 117 exposed women and men and 46 unexposed referents were studied together for simple and choice visual reaction time, body sway speed, blink reflex latency, color discrimination, Culture Fair (a nonverbal nonarithmetic intelligence test), recall of stories, figures, and numbers, cognitive and psychomotor control (slotted pegboard and trail making A and B), long-term memory, profile of mood states (POMS), and scores and frequencies of 34 symptoms. Choice reaction time, sway speed, and blink latency were impaired in both sexes of the exposed group and trail making B was impaired in exposed women. The POMS scores and frequencies of 30 of 34 symptoms were elevated in both sexes, compared to referents. Recall, long-term memory, psychomotor speed, and other cognitive function tests were reduced in exposed subjects and in the referents as compared to national referents. Neurophysiological impairment, and cognitive and psychomotor dysfunction and affective disorders, especially depression and excessive frequency of symptoms, were associated with the use of wells contaminated with VOCs, TCE and PCBs.