Biomarkers in environamental medicine: alterations of cell signalling as early indicators of neurotoxicity

Many environmental and occupational chemicals are known to affect the nervous tissue, causing changes that may result in neurological and psychiatric disorders. Because of limited accessibility of the mammalian nervous tissue, new strategies are being developed to identify "surrogate markers", i.e. biochemical parameters of neuronal cell function that can be measured in easily accessible tissues such as blood cells. In this paper, potential clinical application of assays that examine neurotransmitter receptor density in blood cells is discussed.