EFFECT OF PRENATAL ORGANIC SOLVENT EXPOSURE ON STRUCTURAL CONNECTIVITY AT CHILDHOOD

Glycol ethers are part of organic solvents. They are used in industry and at home during manufacturing or usage of products such as paints, cleaning agents and cosmetics. The specific detection of subtle, low-dose effects of early-life exposure to these solvents on neuropsychological performance in children is a trendy subject of investigation. Neuroimaging allows looking into brain function and identifying different cerebral connections that may be affected by these neurotoxicants. In this paper, we investigated the specific effects of prenatal low-level exposure to different glycol ethers, on brain development of children between 10 and 12 years old. Based on previous studies suggesting cognitive disabilities in the attention, inhibition and working memory, we proposed a structural connectivity analysis using graph theory restricted to the regions involved in these functions. Our results suggest a possible relationship between the attention, working memory and inhibition and prenatal exposure to specific glycol ethers, such as ethoxyacetic acid, ethoxyethoxyacetic acid and 2-butoxyacetic acid.