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The largest group of organic micropollutants with a known mode of action identified in this study were neuroactive compounds, which affect or interact directly with the nervous system.

Chemicals that affect the nervous system interact with different molecular targets, e.g. different insecticides binding either to the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor or inhibiting the enzyme named acetylcholine esterase (table 2.1). Both affect the signalling in the nervous system and mixtures of such chemicals will enhance the effects. Aquatic invertebrates might be particularly at risk owing to exposure to mixtures of different kinds of insecticides, while other species, such as fish, might be affected by the presence of antidepressant or antiepileptic pharmaceuticals that affect the nervous system of fish, possibly in combination with effects caused by insecticides.  This means that chemicals, such as pesticides and pharmaceuticals, which are intended to act via certain modes of action in a certain species, can affect other species as well. For industrial chemicals, such as bisphenol A, PAHs and pBDEs, it is rather difficult to define a specific mode of toxicological action as those can show complex and multiple modes of action. They have been found to cause different chronically relevant responses, indicating long term toxicity such as endocrine disruption and mutagenicity, across various organisms including humans.

Table 2.1: Examples for mode-of-action categories and related mechanisms of chemical action (For further details see Busch et al. 2016)