Research Watch - Litigation Watch: Welding Fumes - Aug 2006

1 ARTICLE: 'Manganese neurotoxicity: connecting the dots along the continuum of dysfunction'

JOURNAL:Neurotoxicology. 2006 May;27(3):347-9. Epub 2005 Dec 5.

SUMMARY: Three different manifestations of manganese neurotoxicity have been described. The first, and historically most prominent, is often termed manganism: a dramatic extrapyramidal syndrome following acute, overwhelming exposure. While resembling Idiopathic Parkinson's Disease (IPD), most authorities have regarded the two conditions as clinically and pathophysiologically distinct. The second manifestation, reported by several investigators starting in the 1980s, consisted of subclinical and subfunctional declines in the performance of specialized neuropsychological tests. The implication of these cross-sectional findings was that, …