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More than one million babies born annually in the U.S. have been exposed to cocaine, alcohol or tobacco in utero. Now, an NIH-funded study led by Michael Rivkin, MD,
of Children's Department of Neurology,
suggests that these exposures have
effects on brain structure that persist
into adolescence.
Dr. Rivkin and colleagues at Boston Medical Center used volumetric MRI
imaging to study 21 young adolescents
with exposures and 14 with no exposures. Adolescents exposed prenatally to cocaine, alcohol or cigarettes had reductions in
cortical gray matter and total brain volume. The sample was too small to find statistically significant effects of any single substance after adjustment for other exposures, but the more substances a child was exposed to, the greater the volume reduction. Especially noteworthy was that prenatal tobacco exposure alone had an effect on brain volume that fell just short of statistical significance. (Pediatrics, April 2008)
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