Mental Health and Neuropsychiatric Aftermath 35 Years After the Chernobyl Catastrophe: Current State and Future Perspectives

OBJECTIVE: The Chernobyl nuclear power plant (ChNPP) disaster that happened in Ukraine on the 26th of April 1986 still represents the most severe nuclear accident in human history. Its consequences, especially those involving mental health are increasingly emerging as long-term detrimental effects. Therefore, the aim of the present paper was to review the results of some of authors’ studies and their personal reflections on this topic. METHOD: The authors selected and commented on the findings mainly derived from their contributions on the prevalence of long-term psychopathological symptoms and neuropsychiatric disorders in diferent groups of exposed and non exposed individuals, including the workers at the NPP the so-called liquidators (CUWs), the most exposed group, evacuees and people living in more or less contaminated areas. RESULTS: The main findings derived from a series of studies carried out by the authors throughout the following decades after the disaster indicate the high prevalence of cerebrovascular diseases, organic mental and depressive disorders, cognitive impairment and even dementia that increase with the irradiation dose mainly amongst the liquidators. The organic disorders are probably related to a peculiar effect of radiation on left, dominant brain hemisphere. Interestingly, recent studies revealed abnormalities of the serotonin transporter and other genes disorders possibly at the basis of depression of exposed individuals. CONCLUSIONS: The high prevalence of neuropsychiatric disorders amongst irradiated subjects following the ChNPP disaster highlights the impact of radiation exposure on the lifelong onset of neuropsychiatric disorders, for too long neglected by international agencies. Such findings require to be deepened in the future possibly within the frame of the so-called “ecological psychiatry”.