The potential association of psychoactive pharmaceuticals in the environment with human neurological disorders

Sustain Chem Pharm. 2019 Sep:13:100148. doi: 10.1016/j.scp.2019.100148. Epub 2019 May 27.

Abstract

Psychoactive pharmaceuticals release into the environment and reach humans through a variety of routes, including sewage, drinking water, contaminated irrigation water, biosolids, soil and food. It was assumed that these compounds via the environment could induce genetic effects in the etiology of human neurological disorders. With the help of in vitro, in vivo and in silico approaches, we demonstrated that psychoactive pharmaceuticals in drinking water can cross maternal biological barriers and alter in vitro molecular and genetic mechanisms that potentially have a key role in the development, growth and regulation of neuronal systems during embryonic brain development.

Keywords: Carbamazepine; Drinking water; Environmental toxicology; Fluoxetine; Psychoactive pharmaceuticals; Venlafaxine.