Neurological and Neurocognitive Impairments in Adults with a History of Prenatal Methylmercury Poisoning: Minamata Disease

Takashi Yorifuji (), Tomoka Kadowaki, Mariko Yasuda and Yoko Kado
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Takashi Yorifuji: Department of Epidemiology, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama University, 2-5-1 Shikata, Okayama 700-8558, Japan
Tomoka Kadowaki: Department of Epidemiology, Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama University, 2-5-1 Shikata, Okayama 700-8558, Japan
Mariko Yasuda: Center for Clinical Psychology, Kawasaki Medical School Hospital, 577 Matsushima, Okayama 701-0192, Japan
Yoko Kado: Department of Psychology, Faculty of Letters, Kansai University, 3-3-35, Yamate-cho, Osaka 564-8680, Japan

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 12, 1-10

Abstract: Minamata disease, which happened during the 1950s and 1960s in Minamata, Japan, is a well-known case of food poisoning caused by methylmercury-contaminated fish. Although many children were born, in the affected areas, with severe neurological signs after birth (known as congenital Minamata disease (CMD)), few studies have explored the possible effects of low-to-moderate methylmercury exposure in utero, probably at lower levels than in CMD patients, in Minamata. We, therefore, recruited 52 participants in 2020: 10 patients with known CMD; 15 moderately exposed residents; and 27 non-exposed controls. The average umbilical cord methylmercury concentrations were 1.67 parts per million (ppm) for CMD patients and 0.77 ppm for moderately exposed participants. After conducting four neuropsychological tests, we compared the functions among the groups. Compared with the non-exposed controls, both the CMD patients and moderately exposed residents had worse scores in the neuropsychological tests, although the score decline was more severe in the CMD patients. For example, even after adjusting for age and sex, the CMD patients and moderately exposed residents had 16.77 (95% CI: 13.46 to 20.08) and 4.11 (95% CI: 1.43 to 6.78) lower scores in the Montreal Cognitive Assessment, respectively, than the non-exposed controls. The present study indicates that residents of Minamata who experienced low-to-moderate prenatal methylmercury exposure also have neurological or neurocognitive impairments.

Keywords: environmental pollution; food contamination; methylmercury compounds; minamata disease; neurocognitive evaluations; neurological examinations (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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