Disrupted development of the dominant hemisphere following prenatal irradiation

One hundred children, exposed prenatally to radiation after the Chernobyl nuclear power plant accident, and 50 nonexposed classmates were examined between the ages of 11 and 13 years old using neuropsychiatric tests, WISC, EEG, and visual evoked potentials. Individual prenatal radiation doses were reconstructed for all examined children. The exposed children were found to have more neuropsychiatric disorders, left-brain neurological signs, lower full-scale and verbal IQ, IQ discrepancies with verbal decrement, disorganized EEG patterns, an excess of lateralized-to-left frontotemporal region delta and beta power with depression of theta and alpha power, and interhemispheric inversion visual information processing. Mothers' mental health, stress, and prenatal irradiation contributed to these effects, along with several confounding factors.