Summary
This 2011 mechanistic review by Marcelo Farina (Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Brazil), João B. T. Rocha (Universidade Federal de Santa Maria, Brazil), and Michael Aschner (Vanderbilt; subsequently Albert Einstein College of Medicine) consolidates the molecular mechanisms by which methylmercury produces developmental and adult neurotoxicity. Methylmercury crosses the blood-brain barrier, binds cysteine residues on glutathione and other thiols, accumulates in the developing brain, and induces oxidative stress, glutamate excitotoxicity, and disruption of cellular calcium homeostasis. The review provides the molecular-level explanation underlying the developmental neurotoxicity endpoint that anchors EFSA 2012, JECFA 61st meeting, EPA IRIS, and the FDA/EPA fish consumption advice.
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Update history
The five most recent substantive edits to this page, classified major (evidence or structure moved), correction (a published value or statement was wrong and has been fixed), or minor (narrative rewritten without changing the underlying evidence). Each description is derived from what the edit did to this page; the linked commit is the authoritative record, routine regeneration passes are excluded, and the full version history lives in git. When DOI minting comes online (see schema docs), each entry below will also link to a version-pinned DataCite DOI.
| Commit | Date | Change | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| a8052bb | 2026-08-09 | major | 3 sections added; narrative text revised |