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Published on: August 25, 2014
Neuroimaging of children following prenatal drug exposure
Chris Derauf1, Minal Kekatpure, Nurunisa Neyzi
1John A. Burns School of Medicine, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, HI, USA.
Insights
Prenatal exposure to drugs of abuse alters key brain structures, particularly dopamine-rich areas. These changes, identified via MR-based brain imaging, may predict neurodevelopmental issues in children.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Developmental Neuroscience
- Radiology
Background:
- Prenatal exposure to licit and illicit drugs affects fetal brain development.
- Identifying specific drug effects is complex due to confounding variables.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review literature on brain alterations following prenatal drug exposure.
- To highlight shared neurotoxic profiles of drugs of abuse during development.
Main Methods:
- Review of MR-based brain imaging studies.
- Analysis of functional activation and structural changes in the fetal brain.
Main Results:
- Prenatal drug exposure alters interconnected brain structures, including cortical and subcortical regions.
- Dopamine-rich areas like the frontal cortex and basal ganglia show vulnerability.
- Shared developmental neurotoxicity profile identified for drugs of abuse.
Conclusions:
- Prenatal drug exposure can lead to brain malformations.
- These alterations may serve as biomarkers for intrauterine drug exposure and predict neurodevelopmental compromise.
- Non-invasive imaging methods can improve diagnosis and therapeutic resource allocation for affected individuals.
Abstract:
Recent advances in MR-based brain imaging methods have provided unprecedented capabilities to visualize the brain. Application of these methods has allowed identification of brain structures and patterns of functional activation altered in offspring of mothers who used licit (e.g., alcohol and tobacco) and illicit (e.g., cocaine, methamphetamine, and marijuana) drugs during pregnancy. Here we review that literature, which though somewhat limited by the complexities of separating the specific effects of each drug from other confounding variables, points to sets of interconnected brain structures as being altered following prenatal exposure to drugs of abuse. In particular, dopamine-rich cortical (e.g., frontal cortex) and subcortical (e.g., basal ganglia) fetal brain structures show evidence of vulnerability to intrauterine drug exposure suggesting that during brain development drugs of abuse share a specific profile of developmental neurotoxicity. Such brain malformations may shed light on mechanisms underlying prenatal drug-induced brain injury, may serve as bio-markers of significant intrauterine drug exposure, and may additionally be predictors of subsequent neuro-developmental compromise. Wider clinical use of these research-based non-invasive methods will allow for improved diagnosis and allocation of therapeutic resources for affected infants, children, and young adults.
