Effects of occupational exposure to organic solvents upon cognitive performance.
Twenty-three individuals exposed to mixed organic solvents were compared with 23 nonexposed controls on a number of cognitive performance tasks. Solvent exposure resulted in a significantly poorer performance on the forward digit span test, copying of a complex figure, and on semantic memory tests which also measure individual's ability to integrate linguistic information into cohesive units. These tasks rely heavily upon short-term memory and its integrative operations in higher cognitive function. Acute exposure effect was also observed for the linguistic integrative task.
Milanovic
L
L
Department of Occupational Medicine, DZ Medvescak Marticeva, Zagreb, Yugoslavia.
Spilich
G
G
Vucinic
G
G
Knezevic
S
S
Ribaric
B
B
Mubrin
Z
Z
D000328:Adult; D000395:Air Pollutants, Occupational / Q000633:toxicity*; D003071:Cognition / Q000187:drug effects*; D004781:Environmental Exposure; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012016:Reference Values; D012997:Solvents / Q000633:toxicity*
D000395:Air Pollutants, Occupational; D012997:Solvents