TABLE OF CONTENTS The study of behaviour and its reversible or irreversible modification by chemicals or therapeutic agents in toxic doses is a relatively young approach within neurotoxicology. Generally, neurotoxicology draws upon a broad spectrum of neuroscience methods, such as neuroanatomy, neurochemistry, neurophysiology, neurogenetics or neuropharmacology to study adverse effects of chemicals on the structure and function of the mature or developing nervous system, and behaviour is within this spectrum. Adding the prefix neuro to behaviour may be used to emphasise this link with other neuroscience approaches.
From a historical perspective, behavioural toxicology has evolved from empirical psychology, which has itself been defined as the objective study of behaviour, and it has strong methodological roots in the animal studies carried out in experimental and comparative psychology. Despite its closeness to other neuroscience approaches, behavioural toxicology has clear distinctive features of its own. Behavioural changes are dependent on underlying biochemical or physiological changes at various morphological sites within the body, and behavioural analysis deals with the integrated output of these bodily changes, which may not necessarily be restricted to the nervous system.
There is a tendency to use the term behavioural toxicology for animal models and the term neuropsychological toxicology for the behavioural consequences of human exposure to chemicals. This distinction will not be made in this review. Instead, selected human and animal models and typical studies will be treated under the heading of behavioural toxicology.
It has also become customary to discuss studies on postnatal behavioural deficit following pre-...
