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Abstract: Early exposure to lead and neuropsychological outcome in adolescence.
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Citation: Ris MD, Dietrich KN, Succop PA, Berger OG, Bornschein RL. Early exposure to lead and neuropsychological outcome in adolescence. Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society 2004;10(2):261-270
Abstract:
One hundred and ninety-five participants in the Cincinnati Lead Study were
neuropsychologically evaluated in mid-adolescence. The neuropsychological
measures yielded five factors labeled Memory, Learning/IQ, Attention, Visuoconstruction,
and Fine-Motor. Prenatal, Average Childhood, and 78 month blood lead (PbB)
levels were used in a series of multiple regression analyses. Following rigorous
covariate pretesting and adjustment, a significant main effect of 78 month
PbB on the Fine-Motor factor was found (p <.004). Significant interactions
were also found between gender and lead exposure parameters for both Attention
and Visuoconstruction indicating heightened risk in males. Finally, a trend
toward significance was found for the PbB x SES interaction for Learning/IQ,
consistent with previous evidence of increased educational and cognitive vulnerability
for youth from more disadvantaged backgrounds. These results provide new evidence
from the longest continuing prospective study of the remote effects of early
lead exposure. They indicate the presence of selective neuropsychological
effects in this population, and also that males and females are not uniformly
affected. These results also underscore the complexity of models of neurobehavioral
development, and the modest predictive power of any single determinant.
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