Scholten Chloe, Ghasoub Mohammad, Geeraert Bryce, Joshi Shantanu, Wedderburn Catherine J, Roos Annerine, Subramoney Sivenesi, Hoffman Nadia, Narr Katherine, Woods Roger, Zar Heather J, Stein Dan J, Donald Kirsten, Lebel Catherine
Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada.
Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada.
Front Integr Neurosci. 2024 Sep 2;18:1438888. doi: 10.3389/fnint.2024.1438888. eCollection 2024.
Tobacco and alcohol are the two most common substances used during pregnancy, and both can disrupt neurodevelopment, resulting in cognitive and behavioral deficits including language difficulties. Previous studies show that children with prenatal substance exposure exhibit microstructural alterations in major white matter pathways, though few studies have investigated the impact of prenatal substance exposure on white matter microstructure and language skills during the toddler years.
In this study, 93 children (34 exposed to alcohol and/or tobacco) aged 23 years from the Drakenstein Child Health Study, South Africa, completed Expressive and Receptive Communication assessments from the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development, Third Edition (BSID-III) and underwent diffusion MRI scans. Diffusion images were preprocessed, and 11 major white matter tracts were isolated. Fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) were extracted for each white matter tract. Linear regression was used to examine differences between the tobacco/alcohol exposed group and unexposed controls for FA, MD, and language scores, as well as relationships between brain metrics and language. There were no significant group differences in language scores or FA.
Children with alcohol or tobacco exposure had lower average MD in the splenium of the corpus callosum compared to unexposed controls. Significant interactions between prenatal substance exposure and language scores were seen in 7 tracts but did not survive multiple comparisons correction.
Our findings show that prenatal alcohol and/or tobacco exposure appear to alter the relationship between white matter microstructure and early language skills in this population of toddlers, potentially laying the basis of language deficits observed later in older children with prenatal substance exposure, which may have implications for learning and interventions.
烟草和酒精是孕期最常使用的两种物质，二者都会干扰神经发育，导致认知和行为缺陷，包括语言障碍。先前的研究表明，产前接触这些物质的儿童在主要白质通路中表现出微观结构改变，不过很少有研究调查产前接触物质对幼儿期白质微观结构和语言技能的影响。
在本研究中，来自南非德拉肯斯堡儿童健康研究的93名23岁儿童（34名接触过酒精和/或烟草）完成了贝利婴幼儿发展量表第三版（BSID-III）的表达性和接受性沟通评估，并接受了扩散磁共振成像扫描。对扩散图像进行预处理，分离出11条主要白质束。提取每条白质束的分数各向异性（FA）和平均扩散率（MD）。使用线性回归来检查烟草/酒精暴露组和未暴露对照组在FA、MD和语言分数方面的差异，以及脑指标与语言之间的关系。语言分数或FA在组间无显著差异。
与未暴露对照组相比，接触酒精或烟草的儿童胼胝体压部的平均MD较低。在7条白质束中观察到产前物质暴露与语言分数之间存在显著交互作用，但在多重比较校正后未留存。
我们的研究结果表明，产前酒精和/或烟草暴露似乎改变了这群幼儿白质微观结构与早期语言技能之间的关系，这可能为产前接触物质的大龄儿童后期出现的语言缺陷奠定了基础，这可能对学习和干预有影响。
