The Neuroimmune Endocrine Network and Emerging Pollutants During Mental Disorders

The influence of exposure to emerging pollutantsPollutant to human health has increased and it is growing evidence of the mechanisms by which these pollutantsPollutant modify the response of the organisms to disease, leading to public concern about the effects of several pollutantsPollutant, specially the endocrine-disrupting compounds (EDCs) on neuropsychiatric disorders (Segovia-Mendoza et al. in Int J Environ Res Public Health 19:1737, 2022). Considering the complex communication between the central nervous, endocrine, and immune systems and that every insult to one of them in fact affects the other two, it is crucial to analyze the effect of exposure to most environmentalEnvironmental pollutantsPollutant on this relationship in a global perspective. On the other hand, roughly 450 million people suffer from mental disorders worldwide, namely, one in three people could develop any mental disorder or mental illness during their lifetime. According to the WHO Mental Health Gap Action Program (2008), morbidity from mental and neurological disorders represented 14% of the global burden of disease in 2008. However, after the COVID-19COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, more than 2 billion people experienced onset or exacerbation of mental disorders including depression, anxietyAnxiety, bipolar affective disorderAffective disorder, schizophreniaSchizophrenia, other psychosesPsychosis, dementiaDementia, intellectual disabilities, and autism. Worldwide, mental disorders represent a serious public health challenge, because they are considered a disabling condition in social terms. On the other hand, the current lifestyle has dramatically increased industrial wastes, especially plastic pollution, which is considered an emergent pollutantPollutant globally distributed across the world due to its properties of buoyancy and durability; unfortunately, the sorption of toxicants from plastics has become a health hazard. There are many plastic-related chemicals; two broad families are of critical concern for human health—bisphenols and phthalatesPhthalates. Bisphenol A (BPA) was first synthesized in 1891 but has been widely produced for daily-use products since 1950. BPA presents endocrine-modulating activity and its nocive effects on reproductive health have been widely studied; it also affects the immune response. PhthalatesPhthalates are endocrine-disruptor compounds (EDC) used as plasticizers in a wide array of daily-use products. Exposure to these compounds have been described, since they are not covalently bound to the plastic matrix and easily leach out from it, provoking detrimental effects on human health, particularly during critical periods. Since environmentalEnvironmental pollution by emerging pollutantsPollutant is a strong risk factor for affecting the NIE network, and this network function is closely linked to regulating molecular mechanisms that may be a risk factor for developing mental disorders, in this chapter, we intend to describe a new perspective on the actual status of mental illness and how emerging pollutantsPollutant may alter the neuroimmune endocrine networkNeuroimmune endocrine network to influence the pathophysiology of mental diseases.