{"doi":"10.3390/toxics13070542","title":"Arsenic Exposure and Neuropsychological Outcomes in Children: A Scoping Review","abstract":"<jats:p>A child’s exposure to arsenic (As) can begin in utero through placental transfer to the fetus. There is a growing body of epidemiologic evidence suggesting an association between As exposure and neuropsychological development. Therefore, our objective was to describe the consequences of maternal and/or childhood As exposure on children’s neuropsychological development. We conducted a scoping review with a systematic search of the PubMed, Scopus, EMBASE, Web of Science, and PsycINFO databases. We included studies that assessed the association between maternal and/or childhood As exposure and neuropsychological development in children up to an average of 12 years of age. A total of 77 studies were included, most of which were published between 2020 and 2024 (44.1%), conducted in the United States of America (18.2%) and Bangladesh (16.9%), and involved participants with a median age of 6.6 years. Most studies performed cross-sectional analyses (51.9%) and assessed exposure to elements other than As (64.9%). Childhood was the most frequently studied exposure window (57.2%), and urine was the most commonly used biomarker of exposure (58.4%), followed by blood or serum (32.3%). Cognition was the most frequently evaluated neuropsychological domain (94.8%), followed by psychomotor function (40.3%) and social–emotional function (29.9%). Most studies reported evidence of a negative impact of As exposure on children’s neuropsychological development (73.7%), while some found no changes (27.3%) and a few suggested an improvement (1.3%). An important limitation is that most studies measured total urinary As without speciation into inorganic versus organic forms, which limits the validity of dose–response conclusions based on total arsenic concentrations. This review highlights the potential deleterious neuropsychological effects of maternal and/or childhood As exposure while also identifying areas where the evidence remains inconclusive.</jats:p>","journal":"Toxics","year":2025,"id":641530,"datarank":0.26876392038420827,"base_score":1.791759469228055,"endowment":1.791759469228055,"self_citation_contribution":0.26876392038420827,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.26876392038420827,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":5,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":null,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":null,"fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1294724,"name":"Laura Compañ‐Gabucio","orcid":"0000-0001-5324-1535","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":275016,"name":"Julia A. Bauer","orcid":"0000-0001-8516-6998","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":39598,"name":"Jesús Vioqué","orcid":"0000-0002-2284-148X","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":48177,"name":"MARGARET R. KARAGAS","orcid":"0000-0002-6398-7362","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":301911,"name":"Antonio J. Signes‐Pastor","orcid":"0000-0003-4898-2480","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":1668101,"name":"Leyre Notario-Barandiaran","orcid":null,"position":0,"is_corresponding":false}],"reference_count":0,"raw_metadata":{"has_enrichment":true,"resolved":true,"title":"Arsenic Exposure and Neuropsychological Outcomes in Children: A Scoping Review","abstract":"<jats:p>A child’s exposure to arsenic (As) can begin in utero through placental transfer to the fetus. There is a growing body of epidemiologic evidence suggesting an association between As exposure and neuropsychological development. Therefore, our objective was to describe the consequences of maternal and/or childhood As exposure on children’s neuropsychological development. We conducted a scoping review with a systematic search of the PubMed, Scopus, EMBASE, Web of Science, and PsycINFO databases. We included studies that assessed the association between maternal and/or childhood As exposure and neuropsychological development in children up to an average of 12 years of age. A total of 77 studies were included, most of which were published between 2020 and 2024 (44.1%), conducted in the United States of America (18.2%) and Bangladesh (16.9%), and involved participants with a median age of 6.6 years. Most studies performed cross-sectional analyses (51.9%) and assessed exposure to elements other than As (64.9%). Childhood was the most frequently studied exposure window (57.2%), and urine was the most commonly used biomarker of exposure (58.4%), followed by blood or serum (32.3%). Cognition was the most frequently evaluated neuropsychological domain (94.8%), followed by psychomotor function (40.3%) and social–emotional function (29.9%). Most studies reported evidence of a negative impact of As exposure on children’s neuropsychological development (73.7%), while some found no changes (27.3%) and a few suggested an improvement (1.3%). An important limitation is that most studies measured total urinary As without speciation into inorganic versus organic forms, which limits the validity of dose–response conclusions based on total arsenic concentrations. This review highlights the potential deleterious neuropsychological effects of maternal and/or childhood As exposure while also identifying areas where the evidence remains inconclusive.</jats:p>","is_dataset_classified":null,"base_score":1.791759469228055,"endowment":1.791759469228055,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"views":0,"has_version_chain":false,"is_dataset":false,"is_oa":false,"pmid":"40710988","pmcid":"PMC12300646","openalex_id":"https://openalex.org/W4411801048","authors":[],"funders":[{"funder_name":"Generalitat Valenciana","grant_id":"CIDEGENT/2020/050 – ESGENT/003/2024","title":null},{"funder_name":"Generalitat Valenciana","grant_id":"AICO/2021/347","title":null},{"funder_name":"Generalitat Valenciana","grant_id":"PI20/00557","title":null},{"funder_name":"Generalitat Valenciana","grant_id":"PI23/01568","title":null},{"funder_name":"Generalitat Valenciana","grant_id":"CIDEGENT/2020/050 - ESGENT/003/2024","title":null},{"funder_name":"NIEHS NIH HHS","grant_id":"P30 ES027792","title":null},{"funder_name":"Proyectos del Fondo de Investigación Sanitaria","grant_id":"PI20/00557; PI23/01568","title":null}],"total_grants":7,"fwci":3.3263,"citation_percentile":0.91836238,"influential_citations":0,"citation_trend":[{"year":2025,"count":3},{"year":2026,"count":2}],"oa_status":"gold","license":"cc-by","oa_locations":[{"url":"https://www.mdpi.com/2305-6304/13/7/542/pdf?version=1751351766","host_type":"journal"},{"url":"https://www.mdpi.com/2305-6304/13/7/542/pdf?version=1751351766","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://www.mdpi.com/2305-6304/13/7/542/pdf","host_type":"publisher"},{"url":"https://doi.org/10.3390/toxics13070542","host_type":"journal"},{"url":"https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40710988","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://doaj.org/article/608ec10c71c94727b25f1274e4134c61","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/12300646","host_type":"repository"},{"url":"https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC12300646","host_type":"Europe_PMC"},{"url":"https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC12300646?pdf=render","host_type":"Europe_PMC"}],"fields_of_study":["Heavy Metal Exposure and Toxicity","Arsenic contamination and mitigation","Electrochemical Analysis and Applications"],"mesh_terms":[],"keywords":["Neuropsychology","Psychomotor learning","Medicine","PsycINFO","Offspring","Pediatrics","Psychology","Cognition","Pregnancy","Psychiatry","MEDLINE","Arsenic","Child","Review","Neurotoxicity","Child Development","Speciation Techniques"],"sdg_mappings":[{"sdg_number":0,"sdg_label":"Good health and well-being"}],"linked_datasets":[],"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"database_accessions":[],"source":"live","citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-08-07T18:47:06.334945Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}