Lead Exposure

Lead (Pb) is a heavy metal which is distributed in the environment. Humans may get exposed to lead due to food, water contamination and air pollution caused by industrial emission [4]. As a neurotoxic agent, lead has been known to cause damage in the nervous system. The developing central nervous system (CNS) is far more vulnerable to lead’s toxic effects than the mature brain [40]. Learning and memory impairments in experimental animals exposed to lead during embryonic and gestational stages have also shown continuous brain damage till adult stage [27, 51, 53, 55]. Therefore, lead exposure during CNS development could induce serious effects and remain a potentially large public health problem in the world [35, 52].
One mechanism involved in the lead neurotoxicity is the disruption of the pro- and antioxidant balance, which can induce brain injury through oxidative damage to critical biomolecules, such as lipids, proteins, and DNA. Some studies reported that lead exposure can increase the level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) and oxidative stress in the CNS [2, 11, 31, 44]. Since the
Ethanol consumption was reported to increase body lead burden and essential metals depletion [18, 20]. Both lead and alcohol are known neurotoxicants. Alcohol which is also known to cross the blood–brain barrier might also facilitate the entry of lead in the brain [21]. Several researches has shown that consumption of ethanol during gestation and lactation impaired learning and memory [10, 23, 61]. The hippocampus, which is functionally related to vital behaviors and intellectual activities such as memory and learning, has been shown to be affected by lead, particularly in young children with an unknown mechanism [50]. For this reason, we selected the hippocampus as the target location in the present