Hjem
Klinisk institutt 1

Midtveisevaluering- Eivind Sirnes

Midtveisevaluering for ph.d.-graden ved Universitetet i Bergen for kandidat Eivind Sirnes

Hovedinnhold

Structural and Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Children with Prenatal Drug Exposure

There is growing evidence that prenatal exposure to substance abuse can be detrimental to the developing fetal brain. The teratogenic effect of alcohol is well established in the literature, describing a wide range of structural brain changes in children with prenatal alcohol exposure. The knowledge of potential developmental consequences of prenatal exposure to other drugs than alcohol is far more limited.

The aim of the current project is to investigate associations between prenatal drug exposure and brain structure and function in school age children.

A hospital based population of children with prenatal exposure to alcohol, opioids and polysubstance abuse, were recruited from the Pediatric Department at Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, Norway. Forty three prenatally drug exposed children and 43 sex- and age matched controls underwent structural and functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).

The aim of our first paper was to investigate brain changes detectable by visual analysis of MRI scans, the common method used in everyday clinical practice. We conclude that cerebral MRI is of limited value in the clinical assessment of prenatally drug exposed children, as there were no differences in the frequency of brain changes between exposed children and unexposed controls in this analysis. In our second paper advanced morphometric analyses were used to investigate associations between prenatal opioid exposure and brain volumes. Reduced regional brain volumes were found in the exposed group, but further research is needed to explore the causal nature and functional consequences of these finding. In our third paper results from functional imaging in the opioid exposed group will be presented.