Dioxin exposure and sexual dimorphism of gaze behavior in prepubertal Vietnamese children living in Da Nang, a hot spot for dioxin contamination

Thao Ngoc Pham; Muneko Nishijo; Tai The Pham; Hoa Thi Vu; Nghi Ngoc Tran; Anh Hai Tran; Quyet Do; Tomoya Takiguchi; Yoshikazu Nishino; Hisao Nishijo

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141083

Dioxin exposure and sexual dimorphism of gaze behavior in prepubertal Vietnamese children living in Da Nang, a hot spot for dioxin contamination

Sci Total Environ. 2020 Dec 20:749:141083. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141083. Epub 2020 Jul 25.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Department of Public Health, Kanazawa Medical University, Japan; Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research Center, Vietnamese Military Medical University, Viet Nam.
² Department of Public Health, Kanazawa Medical University, Japan. Electronic address: ni-koei@kanazawa-med.ac.jp.
³ Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Research Center, Vietnamese Military Medical University, Viet Nam.
⁴ Department of Public Health, Kanazawa Medical University, Japan.
⁵ Ministry of Health, Vietnam Government, Viet Nam.
⁶ System Emotional Science, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Toyama, Japan.

PMID: 32829268
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141083

Abstract

Previous studies have reported that dioxin exposure alters sexual dimorphism of play behavior in pre-pubertal children. We aimed to investigate the effects of perinatal dioxin exposure, indicated by dioxins in breast milk, on sexual dimorphism of gaze behavior after adjusting for salivary testosterone (T). Participants were pre-pubertal children in a hot spot for dioxin contamination originating from herbicide spraying in Vietnam. We used eye tracking to assess gaze behavior in 172 children (100 boys and 72 girls) aged 8-9 years. Two sets of 15 pairs of pictures, one oriented towards boys and one oriented towards girls, containing 5 pairs of toy photos (non-biological stimuli) and 10 pairs of human line drawings (biological stimuli) were shown to all children. The total fixation duration for each picture was extracted using Tobii studio software and a feminine index of gaze behavior was defined as the ratio of the summed fixation duration for the girl- vs boy-oriented versions of each stimuli. When viewing non-biological stimuli, feminine index scores significantly increased with TCDD (β = 0.294) in girls only. For biological stimuli, however, feminine index scores significantly increased with TEQ-PCDD/Fs (β = 0.269) in boys and with TCDD in girls (β = 0.286). These associations were significant even after adjusting for salivary T levels, which were inversely associated with some dioxin congeners in girls. In addition, increased feminine index scores for biological stimuli were associated with lower cognitive scores for hand-movement and word-order tests in boys and for face-recognition tests in girls examined at 5 years of age. In conclusion, these results suggest that perinatal dioxin exposure may increase visual interest in girl-oriented objects through impairment of cognitive abilities in pre-pubertal Vietnamese children. PCDD congeners were associated with gaze behavior independently of T levels in boys, while this was only the case for TCDD levels in girls.

Keywords: Dioxin; Gaze behavior; Salivary testosterone; Sexual dimorphism behavior; Vietnam.

MeSH terms

Asian People
Child
Child, Preschool
Dibenzofurans
Dioxins* / analysis
Environmental Pollutants* / analysis
Female
Humans
Male
Maternal Exposure
Polychlorinated Dibenzodioxins*
Pregnancy
Sex Characteristics
Vietnam

Substances

Dibenzofurans
Dioxins
Environmental Pollutants
Polychlorinated Dibenzodioxins