Novel biomarkers for neurotoxicity

我们研究计划的总体目标是开发早期预警标记，以衡量环境污染物对生态系统健康的不利影响。仅高于本底水平的环境暴露很少会产生明显的立竿见影的效果。更常见的是，生物功能的缓慢、潜伏的变化，反映了幸福感的下降。在过去的五年里，我们一直在开发、评估和验证多巴胺能和毒扁豆碱能神经系统中涉及的一些神经化学参数作为甲基汞(MeHg)和其他环境化学品神经毒性的生物标志物的使用。我们现在有一系列针对野生动物和人类种群的神经化学和神经功能测试。下一个五年计划的目标是了解潜在的分子机制，并评估这些影响的生理和生态后果。我们研究关键哺乳动物物种(包括人类)中相同终点的方法是新颖和相关的。我们还有能力将尖端基础实验的结果用于应用于野生动物和流行病学研究。我们的结果可能被用来为生态系统健康管理目的建立阈值。

The over arching goal of our research program is to develop early warning markers for measuring adverseeffects of environmental contaminants on ecosystem health. Environmental exposure just above backgroundlevels rarely leads to observable immediate effects. Slow, insidious changes in biological functions, reflectingdiminished wellbeing, are more common. We have spent the last five years developing, evaluating andvalidating the use of a number of neurochemical parameters involved in the dopaminergic and muscariniccholinergic nervous systems as biomarkers for the neurotoxicity of methylmercury (MeHg) and otherenvironmental chemicals. We now have a series of neurochemical and neurofunctional tests for wildlife andhuman population studies. The objectives of the next five year program are to understand the underlyingmolecular mechanisms and to evaluate the physiological and ecological consequences of these effects.Our approach of studying the same endpoints in keystone mammalian species (including human) is novel andrelevant. We also have the capacity to use the findings from cutting-edge basic experiments for appliedwildlife and epidemiological studies. Our results may be used to establish thresholds for ecosystem healthmanagement purposes.