PCBs and measures of attention and impulsivity on a continuous performance task of young adults

•Akwesasne Mohawks are concerned about effects of PCB environmental pollution.•Attention and impulsivity in young Mohawk adults were measured with Conners CPT.•Overall, scores were not related to concurrent persistent PCB levels.•For boys only, higher PCBs were related to poorer sustained attention.

The present study examines the relationship between current body burden of persistent PCBs and attention and impulsivity in 140 Akwesasne Mohawk young adults aged 17 to 21 whose environment has been contaminated by industrial effluent. Attention and impulsivity were measured by errors of omission, errors of commission, and patterns of reaction time responses on the Conners Continuous Performance Test. The PCB measure was the sum of those persistent PCB congeners detected in 50% of the participants. After adjusting for multiple covariates, regression analyses showed a significant positive relationship between PCB levels and omission scores, but only for males.