Prenatal exposure to organomercury, thimerosal, persistently impairs the serotonergic and dopaminergic systems in the rat brain: Implications for association with developmental disorders
(See study at Prenatal thimerosal and neurotransmitter imbalances in rats)

Michiru Ida-Eto _a,*, Akiko Oyabu ^a, Takeshi Ohkawara ^a, Yasura Tashiro ^a, Naoko Narita ^b, Masaaki Narita ^a

^a Department of Anatomy II, Mie University Graduate School of Medicine, Tsu, Mie 514-8507, Japan

^b Department of Education, Bunkyo University, Koshigaya, Saitama 343-8511, Japan

Received 8 November 2011; received in revised form 2 May 2012; accepted 3 May 2012

* Corresponding author. Address: Department of Anatomy II, Mie University Graduate School of Medicine, 2-174 Edobashi, Tsu, Mie 514-8507, Japan. Tel.: +81 59 232 1111x6326; fax: +81 59 232 8031.

E-mail address: [email protected] (M. Ida-Eto).

www.elsevier.com/locate/braindev

Brain & Development xxx (2012) xxx–xxx

Ida-Eto M et al. Prenatal exposure to organomercury, thimerosal, persistently impairs the serotonergic and dopaminergic systems in the rat brain: Implications for association with developmental disorders. Brain Dev (2012), http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.braindev.2012.05.004

Abstract

Thimerosal, an organomercury compound, has been widely used as a preservative. Therefore, concerns have been raised about its neurotoxicity. We recently demonstrated perturbation of early serotonergic development by prenatal exposure to thimerosal (Ida-Eto et al. (2011) [11]). Here, we investigated whether prenatal thimerosal exposure causes persistent impairment after birth. Analysis on postnatal day 50 showed significant increase in hippocampal serotonin following thimerosal administration on embryonic day 9.

Furthermore, not only serotonin, striatal dopamine was significantly increased. These results indicate that embryonic exposure to thimerosal produces lasting impairment of brain monoaminergic system, and thus every effort should be made to avoid the use of thimerosal.

Keywords: Thimerosal; Serotonin; Dopamine; Embryonic exposure; Developmental disorders; Rat" that closes with (emphasis added):

"These results indicate that embryonic exposure to thimerosal produces lasting impairment of brain monoaminergic system, and thus every effort should be made to avoid the use of thimerosal."