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The Potential Contribution of Advanced Imaging Techniques to Developmental Neurotoxicity Risk Assessment
Citation:
JENSEN, K. F. The Potential Contribution of Advanced Imaging Techniques to Developmental Neurotoxicity Risk Assessment. Presented at 35th Annual Meeting of hte Neurobehavioral Teratology Society, San Diego, CA, June 26 - 29, 2011.
Impact/Purpose:
This purpose of this talk is to present examples of the use of imaging techniques (e.g. MRI) in the pathologic and morphometric assessment of developmental neurotoxicity to illustrate how these techniques can help address some of these challenges.
Description:
Neuropathologic assessment provides critical data essential to developmental neurotoxicity risk assessment. There are a number of objectives in conducting a neuropathologic assessment to effectively support risk assessment. These include a comprehensive assessment of the adult and developing nervous system, determining whether observed adverse effects are treatment-related, assessing the dose-dependence of such effects, and ultimately determining the dose level at which no adverse effects are observed (NOAEL). Historically, a number of challenges have emerged in using neuropathologic and morphometric data in the assessment of developmental neurotoxicity. These include the detection of neuropathologic alterations associated with developmental insults, the difficulty of making a comprehensive assessment of the adult and developing nervous system, and the potential to reveal relatively small but significant dosedependent morphometric alterations. This purpose of this talk is to present examples of the use of imaging techniques (e.g. MRI) in the pathologic and morphometric assessment of developmental neurotoxicity to illustrate how these techniques can help address some of these challenges. These examples will also serve as basis for outlining the what is necessary to incorporate these techniques into toxicity testing in support of risk assessment, in particular standardization and validation. This is an abstract of a proposed presentation and does not necessarily reflect EPA policy.