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A Review of Acrylamide Neurotoxicity Part I. Properties, Uses and Human Exposure

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2015

Peter S. Spencer  and
Herbert H. Schaumburg
Peter S. Spencer*
Affiliation:
Department of Pathology (Neuropathology), The Saul R. Korey Department of Neurology, and the Rose F. Kennedy Center for Research in Mental Retardation and Human Development, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, The Bronx, New York 10461, U.S.A.
Herbert H. Schaumburg
Affiliation:
Department of Pathology (Neuropathology), The Saul R. Korey Department of Neurology, and the Rose F. Kennedy Center for Research in Mental Retardation and Human Development, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, The Bronx, New York 10461, U.S.A.
*
Department of Pathology, 1300 Morris Park Avenue, The Bronx, New York 10461, U.S.A.
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Two factors have stimulated the present intense investigation of acrylamide neurotoxicity. These are the health hazard accompanying the vast and increasing industrial production of acrylamide, and the promise of illuminating the mechanism of dying-back disease in the human nervous system by employing acrylamide as an experimental tool. The present paper discusses the industrial uses of acrylamide, its regulation, and the prevention, detection and clinico-pathologic features of human intoxication. Bearing on the cumulative nature of acrylamide neurotoxicity, separate sections review the chemistry, biochemistry, toxicology and metabolic fate of acrylamide. Clinical, electrophysiological and morphologic data on acute and chronic acrylamide intoxication of experimental animals, and possible etiologies of nervous system damage, are considered in detail in a companion paper (P. S. Spencer and H. H. Schaumburg, Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences, 1:151, 1974).

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Neurological Sciences , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , May 1974 , pp. 143 - 150
Copyright
Copyright © Canadian Neurological Sciences Federation 1974

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