A Cognitive-Pharmacokinetic Computational Model of the Effect of Toluene on Performance

We developed a cognitive-pharmacokinetic computational (CPC) model to understand how pharmacoactive substances, such as caffeine and toluene, modulate cognition. In this integrated model, dynamic physiological mechanisms are simulated to predict concentrations of the solvent toluene in the brain, which modulates specific cognitive systems in a doseresponse fashion over multiple hours. We used our CPC model to reanalyze the results from prior research that documented an increase in reaction time following exposure to toluene in several laboratory tasks with no change in accuracy. Our analysis provides tentative evidence that toluene affects motor execution, rather than attention or declarative memory.