Neurodegeneration in a regulatory context: The need for speed

Pesticides are increasingly recognized to induce or accelerate the development of neurodegenerative diseases, which pose an increasing health burden to society. Pesticides in general, and (mixtures of) specific active substances in particular, have been associated with neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson's disease, both epidemiologically and experimentally. Current regulatory guidelines for safety assessment cannot fully capture neurodegenerative effects of chemical substances, primarily due to a lack of dedicated histopathological markers and functional behaviour parameters in both standard- and specific neurotoxicity studies. Given the widespread use of pesticides and societal burden of neurodegenerative diseases, there is an urgent need for improvements. Here we propose a tiered approach consisting of 1) short term adaptations to current guideline studies and 2) long term transition of chemical safety assessment to a strategy based on human biology using in vitro and in silico methods.