Chronic neurobehavioural effects in paint formulators exposed to solvents and noise

Twenty-one male paint formulators with an average age of 41.3 years (range 27-53), educational level of 7.4 years (range 5-10) and exposure level of 0.09 times Threshold Limit Value (TLV) index of solvent mixture (range 0.003-0.24 times TLV-index) for 20.2 years (range 7-39) were studied with a battery of neurobehavioural performance tests including digit span, digit symbol, Benton visual retention, finger tapping, grooved peg board, and aiming test. A group of 21 male workers matched for age (mean 40.8 years, range 25-53) and education (mean 6.9 years, range 5-12), and with no history of exposure to neurotoxic agents were selected as controls. In all the neurobehavioural tests, the exposed workers' performances were observed to be poorer than the controls'. Statistically significant differences were observed in digit span, grooved peg board, and the Z score after adjusting for age, level of education and ethnicity. The least square means for digit span were 11.7 (standard error [SE] 0.77) and 9.2 (SE 0.79); for grooved peg board were 60.5 (SE 2.1) and 69.7 (SE 2.1); and for neurobehavioural Z score were 0.02 (SE 0.11) and 0.50 (SE 0.11) in the controls and exposed workers respectively. The exposed group also performed significantly poorer in aiming test error score and digit span when compared to the controls after adjusted for age, education and ethnicity. The least square means for aiming test error score were 6.5 (SE 2.7) and 12.8 (SE 2.8) for the controls and exposed workers respectively.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)