Children are exposed to many trace elements throughout their development. Given their ubiquity and potential to have effects on children's neurodevelopment, these exposures are a public health concern. This study sought to identify trace element mixture-associated deficits in learning behavior using operant testing in a prospective cohort. We included 322 participants aged 6-7 years recruited in Mexico City with complete data on prenatal trace elements measurements (third trimester blood lead and manganese levels, and & urine cadmium and arsenic levels), demographic covariates, and the Incremental Repeated Acquisition (IRA), an associative learning task. Weighted quantile sum (WQS) regression models were used to estimate the joint association of the mixture of all four trace elements and IRA performance. Performance was adversely impacted by the mixture, with different elements relating to different aspects of task performance suggesting that prenatal exposure to trace element mixtures yields a broad dysregulation of learning behavior.

中文翻译：

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产前微量元素混合物与幼儿行为习得任务的学习缺陷有关。

儿童在整个发育过程中会接触到许多微量元素。鉴于它们无处不在并且可能对儿童的神经发育产生影响，因此这些接触是一个公共卫生问题。本研究试图在前瞻性队列中使用操作性测试来识别微量元素混合物相关的学习行为缺陷。我们纳入了在墨西哥城招募的 322 名 6-7 岁的参与者，这些参与者具有产前微量元素测量（孕晚期血铅和锰水平，以及尿镉和砷水平）、人口统计学协变量和增量重复采集 (IRA) 的完整数据，一个联想学习任务。加权分位数和 (WQS) 回归模型用于估计所有四种微量元素的混合物与 IRA 性能的联合关联。