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Psychiatric risk implications of adolescent exposure to environmental insecticides: a systematic review of rodent studies
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Psychiatric risk implications of adolescent exposure to environmental insecticides: a systematic review of rodent studies

Michelle X Chen, Benjamin Hing, Robert J Taylor and Hanna E Stevens
bioRxiv
11/10/2025
DOI: 10.1101/2025.11.06.687006
PMCID: PMC12642699
PMID: 41292933
url
https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.11.06.687006View
Preprint (Author's original)This preprint has not been evaluated by subject experts through peer review. Preprints may undergo extensive changes and/or become peer-reviewed journal articles. Open Access

Abstract

Adolescence is a sensitive period of neurodevelopment marked by remodeling of brain circuits that support cognitive development and emotion and behavior regulation. These maturation processes heighten psychiatric vulnerability to environmental exposures, including to toxicants such as insecticides. Epidemiological studies show widespread adolescent insecticide exposure and increasingly link this with psychiatric outcomes, yet underlying neural mechanisms remain poorly understood. Preclinical studies can clarify these associations and identify insecticide-induced mechanisms that may disrupt neurodevelopment and produce consequent long-term behavioral outcomes. Here, we performed a systematic review of rodent studies following PRISMA guidelines. 50 original articles met inclusion criteria, examining neurotoxic outcomes following insecticide exposure during adolescence (postnatal days 21-60). Outcomes were categorized into four domains: neurocognitive, neuropsychiatric, neurobiological, and general neurotoxicity. Risk of bias was assessed using the SYRCLE Risk of Bias tool. Across studies, insecticide exposure during adolescence led to learning and memory impairments and tended to increase depression relevant behaviors, alter locomotor activity, and produce general neurotoxic effects. Mechanistic findings highlighted disruptions in cholinergic and monoaminergic signaling, oxidative stress, neuroimmune changes, and cell death and other neurodegenerative processes. Together, these findings indicate adolescent insecticide exposure disrupts multiple neural systems with behavioral consequences relevant to adolescent development and psychiatric risk. Future research should model real-world exposures (e.g. dose, timing) to better inform translational understanding of adolescent psychiatric vulnerability. Because many life-long neuropsychiatric disorders emerge in adolescence, identifying how modifiable environmental exposures shape risk offers an opportunity for prevention and intervention strategies to alter the course of disease across the lifespan.

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