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. 2013 Sep;24(5):651-9.
doi: 10.1097/EDE.0b013e31829d2651.

Autism spectrum disorder phenotypes and prenatal exposure to methylmercury

Edwin van Wijngaarden  1 , Philip W Davidson, Tristram H Smith, Katie Evans, Kelley Yost, Tanzy Love, Sally W Thurston, Gene E Watson, Grazyna Zareba, Christine M Burns, Conrad F Shamlaye, Gary J Myers
Affiliations

Autism spectrum disorder phenotypes and prenatal exposure to methylmercury

Edwin van Wijngaarden et al. Epidemiology. 2013 Sep.

Abstract

Background: There continues to be public concern that mercury exposure and autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be associated. The primary source of exposure to organic mercury in humans is to methylmercury from fish consumption. We evaluated the association between prenatal methylmercury exposure and ASD phenotype in children and adolescents in the Republic of Seychelles, where fish consumption is high.

Methods: We administered the Social Communication Questionnaire to parents of a cohort of 1784 children, adolescents, and young adults. The Social Responsiveness Scale was administered to teachers of 537 cohort subjects at about 10 years of age. Prenatal exposure to methylmercury was measured in maternal hair samples collected at or near the time of birth. Multivariable regression models evaluated the relationship between prenatal methylmercury exposure and ASD phenotypic scores, adjusting for relevant covariates.

Results: The mean prenatal methylmercury exposure for subjects in the analysis was 8.4 ppm (standard deviation [SD] = 5.7). The mean Social Communication Questionnaire score was 8.0 (SD = 4.4). The mean prenatal methylmercury exposure for subjects with Social Responsiveness Scale scores was 6.7 ppm (SD = 4.4) and the mean Social Responsiveness Scale score was 57.6 (SD = 26.8). No consistent association between prenatal methylmercury exposure and ASD screening instrument was found, using linear and nonlinear regression analyses.

Conclusions: Prenatal exposure to methylmercury was not associated with ASD phenotypic behaviors in our cohort of high fish consumers. Our findings contribute to the growing literature suggesting that exposure to methylmercury does not play an important role in the development of ASD phenotypic behavior.

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Conflict of interest statement

Conflicts of Interest

We declare that we have no conflicts of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Scatter Plot of Total Social Communication Questionnaire scores, Combined Cohort. The dashed line indicates the screening criterion score of 15.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Scatter Plot of Total SRS scores, Main Cohort. The dashed lines indicate the screening criterion score of 70 for males and 65 for females.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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