Neurotoxic and genotoxic effects of methylmercury

Priyanka Aggarwal, Smriti Gaur and Pammi Gauba ()

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2014, vol. 16, issue 1, 78 pages

Abstract: The toxic form of methylmercury is of concern in terms of its neurotoxicity, genotoxicity and reproductive toxicity. Extensive research has been carried out on the effects of exposure to high levels of this toxic compound, but this is not true for research on exposure to lower levels. The harmful effects of methylmercury are a cause for concern irrespective of the exposure levels. The problem becomes more serious because of biomagnifications of methylmercury. Disorders may develop during neonatal stage and then develop further during the lifetime. The common effects which can be seen are retarded brain development and permanent disorders like cerebral palsy. This can also cause neurogenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. Research on animals has also shown toxicity. Inorganic Hg was found to be present in brains of neonatal rats, in monkeys prenatal exposure to MeHg resulted in a reduced number of births, and birds laid a lesser number of eggs and the infant mortality rate was higher. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

Keywords: Methylmercury; Genotoxicity; Neurotoxicity; Accumulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10668-013-9475-8 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:endesu:v:16:y:2014:i:1:p:71-78

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10668

DOI: 10.1007/s10668-013-9475-8

Access Statistics for this article

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development is currently edited by Luc Hens

More articles in Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().