Memory performances of children participating to agricultural activities in polluted area: case of Gharb plain (North West of Morocco)

Introduction
The “Gharb” plain (area of our study) localized in the North-West of Morocco is one of the most important agricultural and industrial regions of the Kingdom. Unfortunately, it suffered from the increase of different polluting human activities (heavy metals, pesticides..). The exposition of children to different sources of pollution, especially, during agricultural activities, could expose them to serious neurobehavioral problems.

Methods
The aim of this study is to evaluate the memory performances in schooled children (aged 6 to 8 years) living in urban, suburban and rural zones of Gharb plain, and studying the influence of their participation on agricultural activities (as help of their parents in the field) on these performances. Memory Sub-test of WISC III (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children) and questionnaire are used to realize this study.

Results
The obtained results showed that 29.41% and 28.84% of studied children in rural and suburban zones respectively, participate to agricultural activities, as helper to their parents in the field, but no participation to these activities was registered in the urban children. Indeed, significantly low memory scores were registered in rural and suburban children; (3.73 ± 0.18; 4.05 ± 0.12 respectively) against (4.71 ± 0.12), (p<0.01) in urban children. Moreover, significant correlations between the decrease of memory performances and the participation to agricultural activity (p< 0.05) were registered.

Discussion
This last result highlights the possible involvement of environmental toxicants in this decrease of memory specifically that this region suffered from inorganic and organic pollution.