Lead effects on postural balance of children.

Abstract

The postural sway responses of 63 children with a mean age of 5.74 years were quantified with a Force Platform technique. The average maximum (max) blood lead (PbB) of these children during the first 5 years of life was 20.7 ug/dL (range 9.2 to 32.5). The backward stepwise regression analysis for sway area response during the eyes-closed, no-foam test with all the covariates and confounders and the PbB parameters showed a significant relationship with peak or max PbB during the second year of life. These results are consistent with our previous study with a smaller group of children. The data have been analyzed to provide some insight into the role of various afferents for the maintenance of postural balance. The results suggests a hypothesis that if the max PbB had caused some level of impairment in the functional capacities or interconnectivity of the vestibular and/or proprioception systems at 2 years of age, then it is reasonable to assume that the redundancy in the postural afferent systems would naturally adapt to rely more on the remaining intact afferent system (in this case, vision).

Computerized Posturography with Sway Frequency Analysis: Application in Occupational and Environmental Health.

“…Thus, a static posturography with frequency analysis of postural sway is demonstrated to be useful for assessing dose-effect relationships between neurotoxic chemicals such as lead, organic solvents and sarin, and their effects on postural balance systems, in light of results from previous studies [2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15] which revealed significant increase in the postural sway caused by chemical substances. However, there are some weaknesses in the studies presented here.…”

Behavioral effects of lead: commonalities between experimental and epidemiologic data.

“…Effects have been (63) observed at blood lead levels similar to those (28,40) in children; a no observable effect level has (28) not been identified in either children or ani- (18) mals. Research in the last decade has often included analyses to identify the behavioral (59) processes underlying the observed lead- (54) induced behavioral deficits (75). (30) Much of the earlier work in animal (36) models assessed the effects of high doses of (34139) lead on simple learning problems.…”

Subclinical Cerebellar Anterior Lobe, Vestibulo-Cerebellar and Spinocerebellar Afferent Effects in Young Female Lead Workers in China: Computerized Posturography with Sway Frequency Analysis and Brainstem Auditory Evoked Potentials.

“…Some groups of investigators reported that postural balance was adversely affected by lead using a computerized static posturography [31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38] . This technique measures displacements of the body's center of pressure in a horizontal plane by the use of a force platform connected to a microcomputer; summary measures generally used were length of the sway path or speed of the sway and the area included within the sway path.…”