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Interaction of Insecticides with the Nervous System

  • Conference paper
Toxicology of Pesticides

Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((ASIH,volume 13))

Abstract

The majority of modern insecticides owe their toxicity to their ability to attack the nervous system. Insect have a very well-developed nervous system, sometimes comparable in organization, although different and simpler, to that of mammals (Matsumura, 1985). Poisoning of insect nervous system easily disrupts their physiological mechanisms; most insecticides, however, are also toxic to nontarget organisms, including human. Understanding the mechanism of action of pesticides is a major and fundamental task for pesticide toxicologists, as the knowledge of the mechanism of action of drugs is of vital importance for pharmacologists. Although there are cases (e.g. aspirin) where the mechanism of action of a drug has been discovered long after the beginning of its common and successful use, a great emphasis is given today to address mechanistic questions in the initial stages of the development of a new drug or pesticide. It is far beyond the scope of this chapter to review the neurotoxicology of pesticides, and I will concentrate only on selected aspects of mechanistic studies of pesticide neurotoxicity, with special emphasis on their interaction with neurotransmitter receptors. I refer the interested reader to various books and reviews published in the last few years (Murphy, 1980; Ecobichon and Joy, 1982; Matsumura, 1985).

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  1. Department of Environmental Health, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA

    Lucio G. Costa

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  1. Lucio G. Costa
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  1. Department of Environmental Health, University of Washington, 98195, Seattle, WA, USA

    Lucio G. Costa  & Sheldon D. Murphy  & 

  2. Institute of Experimental Sciences, University of Milan, Via Balzaretti 9, I-20133, Milan, Italy

    Corrado L. Galli

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Costa, L.G. (1987). Interaction of Insecticides with the Nervous System. In: Costa, L.G., Galli, C.L., Murphy, S.D. (eds) Toxicology of Pesticides. NATO ASI Series, vol 13. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-70898-5_7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-70898-5_7

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