Methylmercury is an environmental neurotoxicant found in fish that produces behavioral deficits following early developmental exposure. The impact of adolescent exposure to this developmental neurotoxicant is only recently being explored in animal models. Here, short-term memory and sustained attention were examined using a rodent model of adolescent methylmercury exposure. Rats were exposed to 0, 0.5, or 5 ppm methylmercury throughout the adolescent period and tested on a two-choice visual signal detection task in adulthood. Methylmercury improved short-term remembering in this procedure but the dose-effect curve was nonmonotonic, as has been reported previously: effects on memory were observed in animals exposed to 0.5 ppm methylmercury, but not 5 ppm. Methylmercury did not significantly alter sustained attention, which is in contrast to effects following gestational exposure in human populations. The results may suggest that attention is not involved with previously reported effects of methylmercury during adolescence, but certain procedural issues remain unresolved.

中文翻译：

---

青春期甲基汞暴露会改变雄性Long-Evans大鼠的短期记忆能力，但不会持续引起注意。

甲基汞是鱼类中发现的一种环境神经毒性物质，在早期发育暴露后会产生行为缺陷。青春期暴露于这种发育性神经毒素的影响只是在动物模型中才被探索。在这里，使用青春期甲基汞暴露的啮齿动物模型检查了短期记忆和持续注意力。在整个青春期，大鼠都暴露于0、0.5或5 ppm的甲基汞，并在成年期进行了二选式视觉信号检测任务的测试。甲基汞改善了该程序的短期记忆能力，但剂量效应曲线是非单调的，如先前报道：在暴露于0.5 ppm甲基汞但未接触5 ppm的动物中观察到对记忆的影响。甲基汞并未显着改变持续的注意力，与人群中妊娠暴露后的影响相反。结果可能表明注意力并未与先前报道的甲基汞在青春期的作用有关，但某些程序问题仍未解决。