Colour vision defects in occupational chronic solvent encephalopathy

16Citations
Citations of this article
16Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

This article is free to access.

Abstract

Occupational chronic solvent encephalopathy (CSE) is associated with a number of neurobehaviuoral disorders including defects of visual perception. The purpose of this study was to characterize colour vision defects in CSE patients. Colour vision was tested in bright illumination with the Farnsworth-Munsell 100-hue test in workers who had CSE due to occupational exposure to common industrial solvents. Before assessing colour vision, the subjects' ocular health and visual functions were evaluated. On the basis of this evaluation, 36 subjects with healthy eyes were selected and their colour vision was tested monocularly. The colour vision performance of the patient group was, statistically, significantly inferior to that of a control group matched by age at a group level. A mixed form of reduced colour sensitivity was found in 42% (n = 15/36) of the cases, affecting the entire range of Munsell hues. No association was found between the length and intensity of exposure and colour vision performance. Our results show that CSE patients can have significantly impaired colour discrimination ability, although their eyes are healthy and their other visual functions are normal. This may indicate toxic damage to higher level visual processing, possibly the colour selective regions of the cerebral cortex. © 2007 SAGE Publications.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Päällysaho, J., Näsänen, R., Mäntyjärvi, M., Kaukiainen, A., & Sainio, M. (2007). Colour vision defects in occupational chronic solvent encephalopathy. In Human and Experimental Toxicology (Vol. 26, pp. 375–383). https://doi.org/10.1177/0960327107076820

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free