Although counts of occupational neurological disorder
compose only a small part of the overall occupational disorders,
it has a significant impact on the occupational safety and
health system. With this Research Topic, we have promoted an
increased attention and interest in strengthening the existing
ties and dialogue between neuroscience and occupational health
from prevention, to diagnosis and management up labor
reintegration strategies of workers. Workplace participation of
individuals with disabilities continues to be a challenge. From
a broader perspective, this improvement might help to reduce
the percentage of work leave due to disease, reduce workplace
accidents, and improve the mental health of worker

Barbic F.

Garbarino S.

Lanteri P.

Magnavita N. (ORCID:0000-0002-0988-7344)

Stalberg E. V.

PubliCatt

EDITORIALpublished: 03 February 2022doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.830288Frontiers in Human Neuroscience | www.frontiersin.org 1 February 2022 | Volume 16 | Article 830288Edited and reviewed by:Leonhard Schilbach,Ludwig Maximilian University ofMunich, Germany*Correspondence:Sergio Garbarinosgarbarino.neuro@gmail.com†These authors have contributedequally to this workSpecialty section:This article was submitted toBrain Health and ClinicalNeuroscience,a section of the journalFrontiers in Human NeuroscienceReceived: 06 December 2021Accepted: 12 January 2022Published: 03 February 2022Citation:Garbarino S, Magnavita N, Barbic F,Stålberg EV and Lanteri P (2022)Editorial: Occupational Neuroscience:Nervous System’s Health at theWorkplace.Front. Hum. Neurosci. 16:830288.doi: 10.3389/fnhum.2022.830288Editorial: OccupationalNeuroscience: Nervous System’sHealth at the WorkplaceSergio Garbarino 1,2*†, Nicola Magnavita 2,3†, Franca Barbic 4,5, Erik Valdemar Stålberg 6 andPaola Lanteri 71Department of Neuroscience, Rehabilitation, Ophthalmology, Genetics, and Maternal/Child Sciences (DINOGMI), Universityof Genoa, Genoa, Italy, 2 Postgraduate School of Occupational Medicine, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy,3Department of Woman/Child and Public Health, Fondazione Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli IRCCS, Rome, Italy,4Department of Biomedical Sciences, Humanitas University, Milan, Italy, 5 Internal Medicine, IRCCS Humanitas ResearchHospital, Milan, Italy, 6Department of Neuroscience, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, 7Neurophysiology Unit,Fondazione IRCCS Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta, Milan, ItalyKeywords: neurological disorders and brain damage, neurotoxic environment, occupational medicine (MeSH),sleep-wake cycle, stressEditorial on the Research TopicOccupational Neuroscience: Nervous System’s Health at the WorkplaceIt is widely known that physical, chemical, biological, and psychological risk factor exposures inthe working environment may impact the health, wellbeing, and safety of employees by producingacute or chronic alterations in complex functions controlled by the nervous system. At the sametime, exposure to different multiple risk factors, potentially involving neural regulation systemsin humans is increasing nowadays and requires a new complex multidisciplinary approach tothe Research Topic (Thompson et al., 2020). Physical and psychological stress may enhancethe neurodegenerative processes whose mechanisms are still poorly understood (Pearce andKromhout, 2014). Occupational stress may seriously affect the autonomic nervous system as wellas impacting cognitive performance and alertness. Stress causes include irregular and long workingshifts that are often associated with physiologic wake-sleep rhythms alterations (Magnavita andGarbarino, 2017).Long-term exposure to risk factors could amplify the effects also impacting the cardiovascularsystem, particularly in aging workers.The recent development of immuno-neurology, neuro-epidemiology, and neuro-geneticsprovided tools and methods to improve the current knowledge on the role of the workplace andenvironmental exposure in reducing health and wellbeing (Ijomone et al., 2020).Multiple Sclerosis, some polyradiculopathies, and synucleinopathies such as Alzheimer’s andParkinsonisms are thought to be tightly connected to environmental factors acting on an alreadygenetically susceptible host. Genetic polymorphism studies and an in-depth investigation of therole of occupational and environmental exposure potentially translating into an effective epigeneticimpact will help to identify specific populations of genetically susceptible individuals, for whom,different protection strategies should be adopted in the workplace (Hedström et al., 2016).In addition to genetic polymorphism studies, electrophysiologic and neuroimaging studies,in particular, evoked potentials, electromyography, conduction velocities, nerve and muscleechography, andMRI, can help to confirm the etiopathogenesis, brain damage symptoms, to detectsubclinical or early peripheral and central nervous system involvement and to accurately diagnoseand manage the disease. This knowledge will help to further develop personalized occupationalhealth, promptly identifying and protecting those workers who are resulting more susceptible toneurotoxic effects.Garbarino et al. Editorial: Occupational NeuroscienceThis Research Topic on “Occupational Neuroscience: NervousSystem’s Health at the Workplace” has aimed at stimulatingscientists and clinicians to focus on the potential relationshipsbetween nervous system disorders, wellbeing alteration, andthe complex occupational environment’s impact on the nervoussystem’s health, providing inputs and novel methodologicalapproaches. This area seeks to analyze the effects in a holisticfashion, adopting a multidisciplinary approach by involvingdifferently specialized experts.Even though it is an innovative matter that it tried to join theneuroscience and the occupational world, most of manuscriptswere submitted by specialists from neuroscience field.Following an Occupational health traditional approach,Lucero and Muñoz-Quezada have analyzed the effectsof occupational exposure to pyrethroid pesticides on theneurobehavioral and neurocognitive functioning of agriculturalworkers through a systematic review.Benzodiazepines have been widely used in clinical practice forover four decades and continue to be one of the most consumedand highly prescribed class of drugs available in the treatment ofanxiety, depression, and insomnia, for the first time in Literature,Garbarino et al. presented a systematic review and metanalysisabout occupational injuries and use of benzodiazepines.An abnormal quantity or quality of sleep, often due toshiftwork in the workplace, is associated with many diseases,and is also evidence that poor sleepers are more frequentlyabsent from work, have more accidents, and are less productive.The possible damage caused by a reduction in the quantity orquality of sleep can be more serious in the caring professionsas addressed by Alfonsi et al. The authors provided an updatedoverview of the literature on sleep problems in night shiftnurses and critically analyzed the psychosocial factors defining aneffective countermeasure based on an individualized approach.In a variety of helping professions emotional stress canlead to “burnout.” Alsalhe et al. explored burnout syndromeamong teachers, a human service professionals particularlyvulnerable to occupational burnout since highly demanding andchallenging task.Severe orthostatic intolerance with recurrent syncope whilestanding are the two most disabling manifestations of PureAutonomic Failure (PAF), a rare peripheral synucleinopathyaffecting mild-age subjects (Kaufmann, 1996). Zamunèr et al.found significant correlations between Work Ability Index andcardiovascular autonomic control biomarkers in response togravitational stimulus in a group of PAF patients still engaged inworking activity. The results of the study open to new preventivestrategies in workplace to delay early retirement and improveworking performance of patients.Health workers are central to the COVID-19 pandemicresponse, balancing additional service delivery needs whilepreserving access to essential health services and deployingCOVID-19 vaccines. A case of recurrent COVID-19 diseasewith neurovestibular symptoms in a health worker is reportedby Zaffina et al. The possibility of recurrence, reactivation orinflammatory rebound of SARS-CoV-2 infection was discussedin the light of Literature data.Workplace participation of individuals with disabilitiescontinues to be a challenge. An employee with neurologicaldisorder should be providing all-round support to return to work.Brain tumors (BT) are between the eight most common cancersamong persons aged 40 years, with an average survival time of 10years for patients affected by non-malignant brain tumor. Somepatients continue to work, reporting difficulties in work-relatedactivities, or even job loss. Schiavolin et al. reviewed the existinginformation about the ability people with BT to return to workand to identify factors associated with job loss.Silvaggi et al. investigated the differences about cognitivestatus, attention and executive functions, memory, word fluency,and functional status, emotional distress and disability betweenpatients returning to work and those who did not after braintumor surgery.Although counts of occupational neurological disordercompose only a small part of the overall occupational disorders,it has a significant impact on the occupational safety andhealth system. With this Research Topic, we have promoted anincreased attention and interest in strengthening the existingties and dialogue between neuroscience and occupational healthfrom prevention, to diagnosis and management up laborreintegration strategies of workers. Workplace participation ofindividuals with disabilities continues to be a challenge. Froma broader perspective, this improvement might help to reducethe percentage of work leave due to disease, reduce workplaceaccidents, and improve the mental health of workers.AUTHOR CONTRIBUTIONSAll authors listed have made a substantial, direct, and intellectualcontribution to the work and approved it for publication.REFERENCESHedström, A. K., Alfredsson, L., and Olsson, T. (2016). Environmentalfactors and their interactions with risk genotypes in MS susceptibility.Curr. Opin. Neurol. 29, 293–298. doi: 10.1097/WCO.0000000000000329Ijomone, O. M., Ijomone, O. K., Iroegbu, J. D., Ifenatuoha, C. W., Olung,N. F., and Aschner, M. (2020). Epigenetic influence of environmentallyneurotoxic metals. Neurotoxicology. 81, 51–65. doi: 10.1016/j.neuro.08,005Kaufmann, H. (1996). Consensus statement on the definition of orthostatichypotension, pure autonomic failure and multiple system atrophy. Clin. Auton.Res. 6, 125–126. doi: 10.1007/BF02291236Magnavita, N., and Garbarino, S. (2017). Sleep, health and wellness atwork: a scoping review. Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 14:1347.doi: 10.3390/ijerph14111347Pearce, N., and Kromhout, H. (2014). Neurodegenerativedisease: the next occupational disease epidemic? Occup.Environ. Med. 71, 594–595. doi: 10.1136/oemed-2013-101943Frontiers in Human Neuroscience | www.frontiersin.org 2 February 2022 | Volume 16 | Article 830288Garbarino et al. Editorial: Occupational NeuroscienceThompson, P. M., Jahanshad, N., Ching, C. R. K., Slaminen, L. E., Thomopoulos, S.I., Bright, J., et al. (2020). ENIGMA and global neuroscience: a decade of large-scale studies of the brain in health and disease across more than 40 countries.Transl. Psychiatry. 10:100. doi: 10.1038/s41398-020-0705-1Conflict of Interest: The authors declare that the research was conducted in theabsence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as apotential conflict of interest.Publisher’s Note: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authorsand do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those ofthe publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated inthis article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed orendorsed by the publisher.Copyright © 2022 Garbarino, Magnavita, Barbic, Stålberg and Lanteri. This is anopen-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons AttributionLicense (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted,provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that theoriginal publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academicpractice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not complywith these terms.Frontiers in Human Neuroscience | www.frontiersin.org 3 February 2022 | Volume 16 | Article 830288

Editorial: Occupational Neuroscience: Nervous System's Health at the Workplace

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Editorial: Occupational Neuroscience: Nervous System's Health at the Workplace

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