Critical issues in the study of the acute effects of solvent exposure

The acute effects of exposure to solvent vapour can be studied under highly controlled conditions in laboratory experiments on volunteers or in quasi-experimental field studies on occupationally exposed workers. Although these two types of investigations can provide valuable information on the neurotoxicity of solvents, their accomplishment encounters theoretical and practical difficulties. In the present paper the independent, the extraneous and the dependent variables of these studies are described, and both the research strategy and the methodology of these types of investigations are presented and discussed.