Blog: “Brain pollution: how common chemicals damage young minds” – Prof Tom Zoeller’s seminar at IfE

On the 9th December IfE hosted a visit and well-attended lecture by internationally recognised brain development researcher Professor Tom Zoeller, from University of Massachusetts in Amherst, USA.

In the course of his lecture, entitled “Brain pollution: how common chemicals damage young minds”, Professor Zoeller explained the pivotal role that the thyroid hormone system plays in development of the brain in humans and animals alike. With examples from historical studies of humans unintentionally deprived of this key developmental hormone through dietary deficiency, it was shown how cognitive abilities throughout life are determined by concentrations of thyroid hormone before and shortly after birth.

Bringing the topic up to date, Prof. Zoeller then showed how a number of modern commonly used chemicals can also disrupt thyroid hormone signalling, with potential to significantly impair human intellectual abilities.

The talk stimulated a number of questions from the audience, asking how chemicals regulators should test for such chemicals, through to how pregnant women can try to avoid exposing their unborn babies to them.

Dr. Dan Pickford (December 2011)