Department of Neurology, University of California at Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California 90095-1769, USA.
J Neurosci. 2012 Oct 31;32(44):15243-51. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1161-12.2012.
Exposure to alcohol in utero can cause birth defects, including face and brain abnormalities, and is the most common preventable cause of intellectual disabilities. Here we use structural magnetic resonance imaging to measure cortical volume change longitudinally in a cohort of human children and youth with prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) and a group of unexposed control subjects, demonstrating that the normal processes of brain maturation are disrupted in individuals whose mothers drank heavily during pregnancy. Trajectories of cortical volume change within children and youth with PAE differed from those of unexposed control subjects in posterior brain regions, particularly in the parietal cortex. In these areas, control children appear to show a particularly plastic cortex with a prolonged pattern of cortical volume increases followed by equally vigorous volume loss during adolescence, while the alcohol-exposed participants showed primarily volume loss, demonstrating decreased plasticity. Furthermore, smaller volume changes between scans were associated with lower intelligence and worse facial morphology in both groups, and were related to the amount of PAE during each trimester of pregnancy in the exposed group. This demonstrates that measures of IQ and facial dysmorphology predict, to some degree, the structural brain development that occurs in subsequent years. These results are encouraging in that interventions aimed at altering "experience" over time may improve brain trajectories in individuals with heavy PAE and possibly other neurodevelopmental disorders.
胎儿期暴露于酒精会导致出生缺陷，包括面部和大脑异常，是智力障碍最常见的可预防原因。在这里，我们使用结构磁共振成像（MRI）来纵向测量一组有产前酒精暴露（PAE）的人类儿童和青少年以及一组未暴露的对照组的皮质体积变化，证明母亲在怀孕期间大量饮酒会破坏个体大脑正常的成熟过程。PAE 儿童和青少年的皮质体积变化轨迹与未暴露的对照组不同，在后脑区域，特别是在顶叶皮层。在这些区域，对照儿童的大脑皮层似乎具有特别大的可塑性，在青春期前经历了较长时间的皮质体积增加，然后同样强烈地减少体积，而酒精暴露组的参与者主要表现为体积减少，表明其可塑性降低。此外，扫描之间体积变化较小与两组的智商和面部形态较差有关，并且与暴露组每个妊娠三个月期间的 PAE 量有关。这表明 IQ 和面部畸形的测量在一定程度上预测了随后几年的大脑结构发育。这些结果令人鼓舞，因为旨在改变“经验”的干预措施可能会改善重度 PAE 和其他神经发育障碍患者的大脑轨迹。
