The children died at two years and six months old, and six years and three months old, respectively. At the time that the infants were observed, one child was one year and four months old and the other child was three years and seven months old. In their clinical and pathological findings, conducted while the infants lived and after they died, the researchers described the infants as underdeveloped, unable to move purposefully, having poor mental development, and experiencing convulsions. Hideyo Matsumoto, Goyo Koya, and Tadao Takeuchi at Kumamoto University in Kumamoto, Japan, described two case reports of infants from the Minamata Bay area with cerebral palsy that had been identified in 1960 as being afflicted with Minamata disease. Many neurophysiological and mental conditions are associated with prenatal exposure to methylmercury. It took approximately ten years from the time of the initial investigations into the causes of the disease for the Japanese government to officially endorse the causal relationship between the wastewater containing mercury dumped into the bay Chisso factory and Minamata disease, thereby compelling Chisso to cease dumping methylmercury into the water. The contamination of the water began in 1932 when the factory discharged wastewater that contained methylmercury into Minamata Bay, a practice they continued until 1968. The congenital disease gets its name from the Minamata Bay, where many cases of intrauterine methylmercury poisoning occurred due to the contamination of water by a nearby acetaldehyde factory of the Chisso Corporation. Symptoms associated with Minamata disease include: lack of eye coordination, convulsions, neck instability, mental retardation, reflex, growth, and cerebellar deficits, hyperkinesis, hypersalivation, hyperkinesia, dysarthria, strabismus, microcephaly, and paroxysmal symptoms. Congenital Minamata disease enabled researchers to identify the poisonous effects of methylmercury, which those near Kyushu consumed when they ate local seafood. In 1959, researchers attributed Minamata symptoms to poisoning by methylmercury found in the water of Minamata Bay in Kyushu, Japan. When pregnant women eat contaminated fish, their embryos or fetuses also are exposed to the methylmercury, and they can develop congenital Minimata disease. Humans expose themselves to methylmercury when they eat contaminated fish. Consequently, the concentrations of methylmercury in exposed fishs's tissues increases over time, with fish high on the food chain possessing higher concentrations of methylmercury than fish low on the food chain. Fish can absorb methylmercury from water through their gills and by eating other fish that possess concentrations of methylmercury. In this form, it is absorbed by aquatic plants and animals. Once in water, bacteria transform the mercury into its more toxic form, methylmercury. When mercury is released into the air, it circulates in the atmosphere until it is brought down through rain or snowfall, and then it can flow into bodies of water like lakes and streams. Humans have introduced mercury into the environment with alkali and metal processing, coal-burning, medical waste, and gold and mercury mining. Natural sources of mercury include volcanic emissions, geologic deposits, and oceanic evaporation. Methylmercury has both natural and synthetic sources. In children, defects due to methylmercury can result in deficits in attention, behavior, cognition, and motor skills. Furthermore, the fetal brain can incur damage despite the lack of signs of poisoning in the pregnant woman. During this gestational period, the embryo's nervous system is particularly susceptible to the influence of neurotoxins like methylmercury that can result in abnormalities. During the third week of gestation, the human nervous system begins to form in the embryo. Women who consume methylmercury during pregnancy can bear children who have neurological issues because methylmercury has toxic effects on the nervous system during embryonic development. Methylmercury (MeHg) is an organic form of mercury that can damage the developing brains of human fetuses. Methylmercury and Human Embryonic Development
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