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Prenatal trace elements mixture is associated with learning deficits on a behavioral acquisition task among young
Francheska M Merced-Nieves1, John Chelonis2, Ivan Pantic3
1Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA.
Insights
Prenatal exposure to mixtures of trace elements like lead, manganese, cadmium, and arsenic can negatively impact children's learning abilities. This study highlights the broad dysregulation of learning behavior due to these environmental exposures.
Area of Science:
- Environmental Health
- Neurodevelopmental Toxicology
- Pediatric Public Health
Background:
- Children face ubiquitous trace element exposures during development.
- These exposures pose a significant public health concern due to potential neurodevelopmental effects.
- Understanding the impact of trace element mixtures on cognitive functions is crucial.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the association between prenatal exposure to a mixture of four trace elements and learning behavior deficits.
- To identify specific learning deficits linked to individual trace elements within the mixture.
- To assess the joint effect of trace elements on associative learning in children.
Main Methods:
- Prospective cohort study including 322 children aged 6-7 years in Mexico City.
- Measured prenatal trace elements: blood lead, blood manganese, urine cadmium, and urine arsenic.
- Utilized the Incremental Repeated Acquisition (IRA) task for associative learning assessment and Weighted Quantile Sum (WQS) regression for mixture analysis.
Main Results:
- The mixture of prenatal trace elements was associated with adverse impacts on learning behavior.
- Specific trace elements within the mixture correlated with different aspects of IRA task performance.
- Findings suggest a broad dysregulation of learning behavior from prenatal trace element mixture exposure.
Conclusions:
- Prenatal exposure to trace element mixtures negatively affects children's learning behavior.
- Trace element mixtures contribute to neurodevelopmental challenges in early childhood.
- Public health strategies should consider the combined effects of environmental trace element exposures.
Abstract:
Children are exposed to many trace elements throughout their development. Given their ubiquity and potential to have effects on children's neurodevelopment, these exposures are a public health concern. This study sought to identify trace element mixture-associated deficits in learning behavior using operant testing in a prospective cohort. We included 322 participants aged 6-7 years recruited in Mexico City with complete data on prenatal trace elements measurements (third trimester blood lead and manganese levels, and & urine cadmium and arsenic levels), demographic covariates, and the Incremental Repeated Acquisition (IRA), an associative learning task. Weighted quantile sum (WQS) regression models were used to estimate the joint association of the mixture of all four trace elements and IRA performance. Performance was adversely impacted by the mixture, with different elements relating to different aspects of task performance suggesting that prenatal exposure to trace element mixtures yields a broad dysregulation of learning behavior.
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