engleski

The correlation between psychological and neurophysiological parameters in workers exposed to xylene

At the Department of Pathology a group of medical workers (31 female, 4 male, mean age 36+/- 7.7. yrs), exposed to elevated daily inhalation of xylene (1000-3000 mg/m3 in the working environment) for at least five years, was tested by event related potentials P-300. An auditory oddball paradigm (25% target stimuli) was used. Two kinds of auditory stimuli were presented: high (1000 Hz) and low (800 Hz) both of 50 ms duration and 80 dB intensity. the P-300 was recorded from the skull according to the international 10-20 EEG system with Fz used as a reference. In addition, all subjects underwent psychological tests (short-term memory ; simple and complex reaction time (RT) to visual and auditory stimuli). Neuropysiologic examination revealed significantly prolonged P-300 amplitude (ANOVA p< 0.05) when compared to the control group. all psychological test results fall into the normal, expected range for age and education. Nevertheless, significant positive correlations were found between P-300 latency and psychological parameter - the ability of convergent thinking (r=0.41 ; p= 0.015), and P-300 latency and simple RT to light stimuli (r= 0.35 ; p=0.04). It can be concluded that observed prolonged P-300 latency is accompanied by longer RT although still in normal range on psychological level of performance.

xylene; psychology; neurophysiology

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