A Review of Acrylamide Neurotoxicity Part I. Properties, Uses and Human Exposure

Abstract

SUMMARYTwo factors have stimulated the present intense investigation of acrylamide neurotoxicity. These are the health hazard accompanying the vast and increasing industrial production of acrylamide, and the promise of illuminating the mechanism of dying-back disease in the human nervous system by employing acrylamide as an experimental tool. The present paper discusses the industrial uses of acrylamide, its regulation, and the prevention, detection and clinico-pathologic features of human intoxication. Bearing on the cumulative nature of acrylamide neurotoxicity, separate sections review the chemistry, biochemistry, toxicology and metabolic fate of acrylamide. Clinical, electrophysiological and morphologic data on acute and chronic acrylamide intoxication of experimental animals, and possible etiologies of nervous system damage, are considered in detail in a companion paper (P. S. Spencer and H. H. Schaumburg, Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences, 1:151, 1974).