Alhowail Ahmad
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology, College of Pharmacy, Qassim University, Al Qassim 51452, Saudi Arabia.
Brain Sci. 2022 Dec 4;12(12):1667. doi: 10.3390/brainsci12121667.
Alcohol is one of the most commonly used illicit substances among pregnant women. Clinical and experimental studies have revealed that prenatal alcohol exposure affects fetal brain development and ultimately results in the persistent impairment of the offspring's cognitive functions. Despite this, the rate of alcohol use among pregnant women has been progressively increasing. Various aspects of human and animal behavior, including learning and memory, are dependent on complex interactions between multiple mechanisms, such as receptor function, mitochondrial function, and protein kinase activation, which are especially vulnerable to alterations during the developmental period. Thus, the exploration of the mechanisms that are altered in response to prenatal alcohol exposure is necessary to develop an understanding of how homeostatic imbalance and various long-term neurobehavioral impairments manifest following alcohol abuse during pregnancy. There is evidence that prenatal alcohol exposure results in vast alterations in mechanisms such as long-term potentiation, mitochondrial function, and protein kinase activation in the brain of offspring. However, to the best of our knowledge, there are very few recent reviews that focus on the cognitive effects of prenatal alcohol exposure and the associated mechanisms. Therefore, in this review, we aim to provide a comprehensive summary of the recently reported alterations to various mechanisms following alcohol exposure during pregnancy, and to draw potential associations with behavioral changes in affected offspring.
酒精是孕妇最常使用的非法物质之一。临床和实验研究表明，孕期接触酒精会影响胎儿大脑发育，并最终导致后代认知功能的持续受损。尽管如此，孕妇饮酒率却一直在逐步上升。人类和动物行为的各个方面，包括学习和记忆，都依赖于多种机制之间的复杂相互作用，如受体功能、线粒体功能和蛋白激酶激活，而这些在发育阶段特别容易发生改变。因此，探索因孕期接触酒精而改变的机制，对于理解孕期酒精滥用后体内稳态失衡和各种长期神经行为损伤是如何表现的很有必要。有证据表明，孕期接触酒精会导致后代大脑中的长期增强、线粒体功能和蛋白激酶激活等机制发生巨大改变。然而，据我们所知，最近很少有综述关注孕期接触酒精的认知影响及相关机制。因此，在本综述中，我们旨在全面总结最近报道的孕期接触酒精后各种机制的改变，并探讨其与受影响后代行为变化的潜在关联。
