Lead Induced Disorders of Mentation in Children

Abstract

Present typical body burdens of the cumulative neurotoxic pollutant lead are now believed to be some 100–1000 times greater than those in pre-technology man. The effects of these seriously elevated levels on brain development and function in children are reviewed. All such effects so far discovered are adverse, and in conjunction with social factors and defective nutrition they can act to prevent a child's mental development reaching his or her true genetic potential. Most aspects of mentation, except possibly mathematical ability, appear to suffer dose-related disturbance at levels now typical for urban children, but impaired intelligence and deficits in the normal inhibitory control of behaviour appear to be prominent. Lead intoxication is therefore a phenomenon relevant to such important problems as educational underachievement and anti-social conduct disorders of the hyperactivity type characterised by a deficiency of inhibitory function in the central nervous system.