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Oregon Health and Science University

Superfund Research Program

Hazardous Chemicals and Brain Developmental Plasticity

Project Leader: Christopher Wallace
Grant Number: P42ES010338
Funding Period: 2000-2006

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Project Summary (2000-2006)

Infancy is an extended developmental process during which an enormous amount of information is incorporated into the brain. If the brain's capacity for experience-dependent growth and modification is degraded even slightly by low level exposures to Superfund chemicals, cognitive performance might be impaired for a lifetime. Project investigators hypothesize that brain plasticity emerging late in development is a sensitive biomarker for detecting subtle damage suffered by brain cells during earlier stages of brain development. To investigate this hypothesis, researchers are employing a model used extensively to document the key role of experience in organizing behavioral abilities and synaptic circuits in young animals. The scientists predict that rats exposed during pre- and early postnatal neural development to Superfund toxicants will show deficits in brain plasticity after weaning at lower doses than would show defects in brain morphogenesis. Because this approach tests a broad functional endpoint of development, it is appropriate for real world mixtures of Superfund chemicals. If the experiments confirm diminished behaviorally-induced gene expression as a biomarker of threshold neurotoxic effects, this novel model could provide a rapid and efficient means of screening the mature nervous system for developmental damage.

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