Toxicology Exam quiz and answers
graded A+
Forensic Toxicology - ANS✅✅defined as the application of toxicology for the purposes of the law
Three major subfields of forensic toxicology - ANS✅✅postmortem forensic toxicology
human performance toxicology
forensic drug testing
Paracelsus definition of a poison - ANS✅✅The dose makes the poison
How a coroner and medical examiner differ - ANS✅✅coroner: is elected by the people or
appointed by a governmental authority; he does not have to have any training or experience in
medicine.
medical examiner: appointed usually by the health department; he must be a physician, usually a
pathologist with training in forensic medicine
Specimens that should be collected at autopsy - ANS✅✅Blood
Vitreous Humor
Urine
Bile
Liver
Other specimens (lung, spleen, stomach, hair)
How specimens are accessioned - ANS✅✅The contributor is notified of any discrepancies. Each
specimen is labeled with a number. Specimens not choicen for analysis should ten be placed in the
freezer for storage or future analysis.
Define: Accessioned - ANS✅✅checked against the request sheet
Four Separation Techniques used to prepare samples for analysis - ANS✅✅1. Heating the
specimen in a sealed container
2. Protein precipitation
,3. Liquid-liquid extraction
4. Solid-phase extraction
Four separation techniques used to identify toxic substances - ANS✅✅spectophotometry
gas chromatography
High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)
Immunoassays
What is necessary to determine if a substance caused death? - ANS✅✅it must be quantified
confirmation studies by pairing of analytical techniques - ANS✅✅Immunoassay plus GC
Color test plus HPLC
GC/Ms
GC and infrared spectroscopy
Four types of postmortem forensic toxicology cases - ANS✅✅Suspected drug intoxication cases
Deaths other than drug intoxications, such as homicides and accidental deaths
In accidental deaths, testing for therapeutic drugs and drugs of abuse, such as alcohol, are routinely
requested, especially in motor vehicle fatalities.
In deaths due to natural causes toxicological testing may be important
the three most frequently encountered substances in the postmortem laboratory -
ANS✅✅Ethanol
Carbon Monoxide
Drugs
Three methods for ethanol analysis - ANS✅✅1. Can use potassium permanganate or sodium
dichromate which will oxidize ethanol to acetaldehyde and acetic acid
2. using alcohol dehydrogenase, which converts ethanol to acetadehyde and NAD to NADH
, 3. heating the specimen and then sampling the headspace and analyzing using GC
Impairment blood alcohol concentration - ANS✅✅blood alcohol concentration above 0.07 g/dL
Blood alcohol concentration that may cause death - ANS✅✅blood alcohol concentration at or
above 0.40 g/dL
One method for carbon monoxide analysis - ANS✅✅It can be measured directly as COHb by
spectrophotometry
Human Performance toxicology - ANS✅✅It is the elucidation and quantification of the dose-effect
relationship between drugs that elicit behavioral changes and those changes.
Performance - ANS✅✅Evaluation of psychomotor tasks for impairness or enhancement
Why blood is the best specimen for accessing performance impairment - ANS✅✅Because blood is
most intimately in contact with the Central Nervous System
Contributions of Erik Widmark to the evaluation of behavioral effects of alcohol -
ANS✅✅correlated the concentrations of alcohol in various body fluids to measures of impairment,
and then applied that information to traffic safety issues.
How blood alcohol concentration (BAC) affects the likelihood of having a driving accident: -
ANS✅✅Researchers found that the chances of having an accident increased geometrically with
the presence of any alcohol in the blood to the extent that each 0.02 g/dL rise in BAC doubled the
risk of accident.
Significance of 0.08 g/dL BAC - ANS✅✅The Legal BAC limit for driving before getting a DUI
Three psychomotor tests that constitute the standardized field sobriety test - ANS✅✅one-leg
stand
Walk and turn
Horizontal gaze nystagmus
graded A+
Forensic Toxicology - ANS✅✅defined as the application of toxicology for the purposes of the law
Three major subfields of forensic toxicology - ANS✅✅postmortem forensic toxicology
human performance toxicology
forensic drug testing
Paracelsus definition of a poison - ANS✅✅The dose makes the poison
How a coroner and medical examiner differ - ANS✅✅coroner: is elected by the people or
appointed by a governmental authority; he does not have to have any training or experience in
medicine.
medical examiner: appointed usually by the health department; he must be a physician, usually a
pathologist with training in forensic medicine
Specimens that should be collected at autopsy - ANS✅✅Blood
Vitreous Humor
Urine
Bile
Liver
Other specimens (lung, spleen, stomach, hair)
How specimens are accessioned - ANS✅✅The contributor is notified of any discrepancies. Each
specimen is labeled with a number. Specimens not choicen for analysis should ten be placed in the
freezer for storage or future analysis.
Define: Accessioned - ANS✅✅checked against the request sheet
Four Separation Techniques used to prepare samples for analysis - ANS✅✅1. Heating the
specimen in a sealed container
2. Protein precipitation
,3. Liquid-liquid extraction
4. Solid-phase extraction
Four separation techniques used to identify toxic substances - ANS✅✅spectophotometry
gas chromatography
High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)
Immunoassays
What is necessary to determine if a substance caused death? - ANS✅✅it must be quantified
confirmation studies by pairing of analytical techniques - ANS✅✅Immunoassay plus GC
Color test plus HPLC
GC/Ms
GC and infrared spectroscopy
Four types of postmortem forensic toxicology cases - ANS✅✅Suspected drug intoxication cases
Deaths other than drug intoxications, such as homicides and accidental deaths
In accidental deaths, testing for therapeutic drugs and drugs of abuse, such as alcohol, are routinely
requested, especially in motor vehicle fatalities.
In deaths due to natural causes toxicological testing may be important
the three most frequently encountered substances in the postmortem laboratory -
ANS✅✅Ethanol
Carbon Monoxide
Drugs
Three methods for ethanol analysis - ANS✅✅1. Can use potassium permanganate or sodium
dichromate which will oxidize ethanol to acetaldehyde and acetic acid
2. using alcohol dehydrogenase, which converts ethanol to acetadehyde and NAD to NADH
, 3. heating the specimen and then sampling the headspace and analyzing using GC
Impairment blood alcohol concentration - ANS✅✅blood alcohol concentration above 0.07 g/dL
Blood alcohol concentration that may cause death - ANS✅✅blood alcohol concentration at or
above 0.40 g/dL
One method for carbon monoxide analysis - ANS✅✅It can be measured directly as COHb by
spectrophotometry
Human Performance toxicology - ANS✅✅It is the elucidation and quantification of the dose-effect
relationship between drugs that elicit behavioral changes and those changes.
Performance - ANS✅✅Evaluation of psychomotor tasks for impairness or enhancement
Why blood is the best specimen for accessing performance impairment - ANS✅✅Because blood is
most intimately in contact with the Central Nervous System
Contributions of Erik Widmark to the evaluation of behavioral effects of alcohol -
ANS✅✅correlated the concentrations of alcohol in various body fluids to measures of impairment,
and then applied that information to traffic safety issues.
How blood alcohol concentration (BAC) affects the likelihood of having a driving accident: -
ANS✅✅Researchers found that the chances of having an accident increased geometrically with
the presence of any alcohol in the blood to the extent that each 0.02 g/dL rise in BAC doubled the
risk of accident.
Significance of 0.08 g/dL BAC - ANS✅✅The Legal BAC limit for driving before getting a DUI
Three psychomotor tests that constitute the standardized field sobriety test - ANS✅✅one-leg
stand
Walk and turn
Horizontal gaze nystagmus
