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Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) has been found to impact neurophysiological encoding of environmental events negatively in the first year of life but has not been evaluated in older infants or toddlers. Cardiac orienting responses (ORs) collected during a habituation/dishabituation learning paradigm were obtained from 12- to 18-month-olds to assess the impact of PAE beyond the first year of life.Participants included women and their toddlers who differed in PAE histories and enrolled in a randomized clinical trial of multivitamin/mineral usage during pregnancy. Those who were randomly assigned to the no intervention group were used for this analysis. The habituation/dishabituation paradigm consisted of 10 habituation and 5 dishabituation trials. Baseline heart rate (HR) was collected for 30 seconds prior to stimulus onset, and responses to the stimuli were assessed by sampling HR for 12 seconds poststimulus onset.The speed of the OR in response to auditory stimuli in the dishabituation condition was found to be altered as a function of maternal alcohol use around conception. For visual stimuli, positive histories of PAE were predictive of the magnitude but not the speed of the response on habituation and dishabituation trials. A history of binge drinking was associated with reduced magnitude of the OR response on visual encoding trials, and level of alcohol exposure at the time of conception was predictive of the magnitude of the response on visual dishabituation trials.Cardiac ORs collected in the toddler period were sensitive to the effects of PAE. The magnitude of the OR was more sensitive to the impact of PAE than in previous research with younger infants, and this may be a function of brain maturation. Additional research assessing the predictive utility of using ORs in making decisions about individual risk was recommended.

Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders comprise the spectrum of cognitive, behavioral, and neurological impairments caused by prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE). Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) was performed on 54 children (age 10.1 ± 1.0 years) from the Cape Town Longitudinal Cohort, for whom detailed drinking histories obtained during pregnancy are available: 26 with full fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) or partial FAS (PFAS), 15 nonsyndromal heavily exposed (HE), and 13 controls. Using voxelwise analyses, children with FAS/PFAS showed significantly lower fractional anisotropy (FA) in four white matter (WM) regions and higher mean diffusivity (MD) in seven; three regions of FA and MD differences (left inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), splenium, and isthmus) overlapped, and the fourth FA cluster was located in the same WM bundle (right ILF) as an MD cluster. HE children showed lower FA and higher MD in a subset of these regions. Significant correlations were observed between three continuous alcohol measures and DTI values at cluster peaks, indicating that WM damage in several regions is dose dependent. Lower FA in the regions of interest was attributable primarily to increased radial diffusivity rather than decreased axonal diffusivity, suggesting poorer axon packing density and/or myelination. Multiple regression models indicated that this cortical WM impairment partially mediated adverse effects of PAE on information processing speed and eyeblink conditioning. Hum Brain Mapp 37:2943-2958, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Prenatal alcohol exposure is known to have severe, long-term consequences for brain and behavioral development already detectable in infancy and childhood. Resulting features of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) include cognitive and behavioral effects, as well as facial anomalies and growth deficits. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) and tractography were used to analyze white matter development in 11 newborns (age since conception

Prenatal alcohol exposure is responsible for a broad range of brain structural malformations, which can be studied using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Advanced MRI methods have emerged to characterize brain abnormalities, but the teratogenic effects of alcohol on cortical morphology have received little attention to date. Twenty‐four 9‐year‐old children with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (9 with fetal alcohol syndrome, 15 heavy exposed nonsyndromal children) and 16 age‐matched controls were studied to assess the effect of alcohol consumption during pregnancy on cortical morphology. An automated method was applied to 3D T1‐weighted images to assess cortical gyrification using global and regional sulcal indices and two region‐based morphological measurements, mean sulcal depth and fold opening. Increasing levels of alcohol exposure were related to reduced cortical folding complexity, even among children with normal brain size, indicating a reduction of buried cortical surface. Fold opening was the strongest anatomical correlate of prenatal alcohol intake, indicating a widening of sulci in all regions that were examined. These data identify cortical morphology as a suitable marker for further investigation of brain damage associated with prenatal alcohol exposure. Hum Brain Mapp 35:2285–2296, 2014. © 2013 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The beneficial effects of prenatal and early postnatal intakes of omega-3 (n-3) polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs) on cognitive development during infancy are well recognized. However, few studies have examined the extent to which these benefits continue to be evident in childhood.The aim of this study was to examine the relation of n-3 PUFAs and seafood-contaminant intake with memory function in school-age children from a fish-eating community.In a prospective, longitudinal study in Arctic Quebec, we assessed Inuit children (n = 154; mean age: 11.3 y) by using a continuous visual recognition task to measure 2 event-related potential components related to recognition memory processing: the FN400 and the late positive component (LPC). Children were also examined by using 2 well-established neurobehavioral assessments of memory: the Digit span forward from Wechsler Intelligence Scales for Children, 4th edition, and the California Verbal Learning Test-Children's Version.Repeated-measures analyses of variance revealed that children with higher cord plasma concentrations of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which is an important n-3 PUFA, had a shorter FN400 latency and a larger LPC amplitude; and higher plasma DHA concentrations at the time of testing were associated with increased FN400 amplitude. Cord DHA-related effects were observed regardless of seafood-contaminant amounts. Multiple regression analyses also showed positive associations between cord DHA concentrations and performance on neurobehavioral assessments of memory.To our knowledge, this study provides the first neurophysiologic and neurobehavioral evidence of long-term beneficial effects of n-3 PUFA intake in utero on memory function in school-age children.

Classical eyeblink conditioning (EBC) involves contingent temporal pairing of a conditioned stimulus (e.g., tone) with an unconditioned stimulus (e.g., air puff). Impairment of EBC has been demonstrated in studies of alcohol-exposed animals and in children exposed prenatally at heavy levels.Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) was diagnosed by expert dysmorphologists in a large sample of Cape Coloured, South African children. Delay EBC was examined in a new sample of 63 children at 11.3 years, and trace conditioning in 32 of the same children at 12.8 years. At each age, 2 sessions of 50 trials each were administered on the same day; 2 more sessions the next day, for children not meeting criterion for conditioning.Six of 34 (17.6%) children born to heavy drinkers were diagnosed with FAS, 28 were heavily exposed nonsyndromal (HE), and 29 were nonexposed controls. Only 33.3% with FAS and 42.9% of HE met criterion for delay conditioning, compared with 79.3% of controls. The more difficult trace conditioning task was also highly sensitive to fetal alcohol exposure. Only 16.7% of the FAS and 21.4% of HE met criterion for trace conditioning, compared with 66.7% of controls. The magnitude of the effect of diagnostic group on trace conditioning was not greater than the effect on short delay conditioning, findings consistent with recent rat studies. Longer latency to onset and peak eyeblink CR in exposed children indicated poor timing and failure to blink in anticipation of the puff. Extended training resulted in some but not all of the children reaching criterion.These data showing alcohol-related delay and trace conditioning deficits extend our earlier findings of impaired EBC in 5-year-olds to school-age. Alcohol-related impairment in the cerebellar circuitry required for both forms of conditioning may be sufficient to account for the deficit in both tasks. Extended training was beneficial for some exposed children. EBC provides a well-characterized model system for assessment of degree of cerebellar-related learning and memory dysfunction in fetal alcohol exposed children.

Although an extensive literature has documented a broad range of cognitive performance deficits in children with prenatal alcohol exposure, little is known about how the neurophysiological processes underlying these deficits may be affected. Event-related potentials (ERPs), which reflect task-specific changes in brain electrical activity, provide a method for examining multiple constituents of cognitive processing at the neural level.We recorded ERPs in 217 children from Inuit communities in Arctic Quebec (M age = 11.3 years) during 2 different tasks-Go/No-go response inhibition and continuous recognition memory. Children were classified as either alcohol-exposed (ALC) or controls (CON) depending on whether the mother reported binge drinking during pregnancy.Both groups performed comparably in terms of accuracy and reaction time on the tasks, and both tasks elicited the expected effects on ERPs when responses were compared across conditions. However, the ALC group showed slower P2 latencies on Go/No-go, suggesting an altered neurophysiological response associated with initial visual processing of the stimuli. On the memory task, the ALC group showed reduced FN400 amplitude to New items, known as the familiarity effect, and reduced amplitude for the late positive component, possibly reflecting impairment in memory retrieval.These findings show that, even in tasks in which alcohol-exposed children exhibit behavioral performance that is comparable to controls, fetal alcohol exposure is associated with altered neurophysiological processing of response inhibition and recognition memory. The data suggest that fetal alcohol exposure is associated with reduced efficiency in the initial extracting of the meaning of a stimulus, reduced allocation of attention to the task, and poorer conscious, explicit recognition memory processing.

The objective of this report is to estimate the benefits of universal meconium screening for maternal drinking during pregnancy. Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), including its most severe manifestation fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), is preventable and remains a public health tragedy. The incidences of FAS and FASD have been conservatively estimated to be 0.97 and 10 per 1000 births, respectively. Meconium testing has been demonstrated to be a promising at-birth method for detection of drinking during pregnancy.The current costs of FAS and FASD, alcohol treatment programs, and meconium screening were estimated by literature review. Monetary values were converted roughly to equal dollars in 2006.Costs of adding meconium analysis to the current newborn screening program and of treatment for the identified mothers were estimated and compared to potential averted costs that may result from identification and intervention for mothers and affected infants. Three potential maternal treatment strategies are analyzed. Depending on the treatment type, the savings may range from $6 to $97 for every $1 spent on screening and treatment.It needs to be emphasized, however, that such screening is premature and that to be effective this screening can be implemented only if there is a societal willingness to institute prevention and intervention programs to improve both women's and children's health. Future research should be directed at improving detection and developing in-depth prevention and remedial intervention programs. A thorough consideration of the ethical issues involved in such a screening program is also needed.