The neural toxicity of lanthanides: An update and interpretations

Abstract

Lanthanide is a unique and dominant resource of our country. Accompanied by the wide applications of lanthanides in industry, agriculture and medicine, the toxicity issues have been paid more and more attention by the public and scientists, particularly on the neurotoxicity of the lanthanides. Here we review the major progresses made within the past decade on the studies of the biol./toxicol. effects of lanthanides on neural systems, including the permeation of lanthanides across brain blood barrier, the responses of neural systems to lanthanide exposure and the actions and mol. mechanisms of lanthanides on neural cells. The implications of current results to the question whether lanthanides is toxic for neural systems are discussed. [on SciFinder(R)]