The use of neonicotinoid insecticides (NEOs) has been rising globally due to their broad-spectrum insecticidal activity, unique mode of neurotoxic action and presumed low mammalian toxicity. Given their growing ubiquity in the environment and neurological toxicity to non-target mammals, human exposure to NEOs is flourishing and now becomes a big issue. In the present work, we demonstrated that 20 NEOs and their metabolites have been reported in different human specimens with urine, blood and hair as the dominance. Sample pretreatment techniques of solid-phase and liquid-liquid extractions coupled with high performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry have successfully achieved matrix elimination and accurate analysis. We also discussed and compared exposure characteristics of these compounds among types of specimens and different regions. A number of important knowledge gaps were also identified in order to further facilitate the understanding of health effects of NEO insecticides, which include, but are not limited to, identification and use of neuro-related human biological samples for better elucidating neurotoxic action of NEO insecticides, adoption of advanced non-target screening analysis for a whole picture in human exposure, and expanding investigations to cover non-explored but NEO-used regions and vulnerable populations.

新烟碱类杀虫剂 (NEO) 的使用量在全球范围内不断增加，因为其具有广谱杀虫活性、独特的神经毒性作用模式以及对哺乳动物的低毒性。鉴于近地天体在环境中的日益普遍性以及对非目标哺乳动物的神经毒性，人类接触近地天体的现象越来越普遍，现在已成为一个大问题。在目前的工作中，我们证明了在不同的人体样本中报告了 20 种 NEO 及其代谢物，其中以尿液、血液和头发为主。固相和液液萃取联合高效液相色谱串联的样品前处理技术质谱法已成功实现基质消除和准确分析。我们还讨论并比较了这些化合物在不同类型标本和不同地区的暴露特征。为了进一步促进了解 NEO 杀虫剂的健康影响，还确定了一些重要的知识差距，其中包括但不限于识别和使用与神经相关的人类生物样本，以更好地阐明 NEO 杀虫剂的神经毒性作用，采用先进的非目标筛查分析来全面了解人类暴露情况，并扩大调查范围以涵盖未探索但近地天体使用的地区和弱势群体。