Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2009 Jun 16;72(24):2068-75.
doi: 10.1212/01.wnl.0000346516.49126.20. Epub 2009 Apr 15.

Lower diffusion in white matter of children with prenatal methamphetamine exposure

C C Cloak  1 , T Ernst, L Fujii, B Hedemark, L Chang
Affiliations

Lower diffusion in white matter of children with prenatal methamphetamine exposure

C C Cloak et al. Neurology. .

Abstract

Background: Methamphetamine use is a common problem among women of childbearing age, leading to an increasing number of children with prenatal methamphetamine exposure. Whether microstructural brain changes associated with prenatal methamphetamine exposure can be detected with diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) is unknown.

Method: Twelve-direction DTI was performed in 29 methamphetamine-exposed and 37 unexposed children ages 3-4 years on a 3-T MRI scanner. Fractional anisotropy (FA) and apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) were determined in the corpus callosum (genu and splenium) and bilaterally in the frontal and parietal white matter (WM), basal ganglia (caudate, putamen, globus pallidus), and thalamus.

Results: Children with prenatal methamphetamine exposure had lower ADC in the frontal (right: -2.1%, p = 0.04; left: -2.0%, p = 0.09) and parietal WM (right: -3.9%, p = 0.002; left: -3.3%, p = 0.02) compared to unexposed children. The methamphetamine-exposed children also showed a trend for higher FA in the left frontal WM (+4.9%, p = 0.06) compared to the unexposed children.

Conclusion: Since less myelination and higher dendritic or spine density have been reported in animals exposed to methamphetamine, lower diffusion in our children may reflect more compact axons or greater dendritic or spine density associated with prenatal methamphetamine exposure. These findings suggest alterations in white matter maturation in these children exposed to methamphetamine in utero.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

None
Figure 1 Representative region of interest placements on fractional anisotropy maps for the seven regions studied Thalamus (E), globus pallidus (F), putamen (G), caudate (H), and white matter (WM) regions [frontal WM (C) and parietal WM (D)] were drawn bilaterally, while corpus callosum was drawn as indicated in the splenium (A) and genu (B).
None
Figure 2 Lower white matter diffusion in children with prenatal methamphetamine exposure (repeated measures analysis of variance for all white matter regions p = 0.007) Means and SEM are shown with percent change for significant between-group post hoc t tests for each region. METH = methamphetamine; WM = white matter.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

References

    1. Chang L, Smith LM, LoPresti C, et al. Smaller subcortical volumes and cognitive deficits in children with prenatal methamphetamine exposure. Psychiatry Res 2004;132:95–106. - PubMed
    1. Smith LM, Chang L, Yonekura ML, Grob C, Osborn D, Ernst T. Brain proton magnetic resonance spectroscopy in children exposed to methamphetamine in utero. Neurology 2001;57:255–260. - PubMed
    1. Unis AS, Roberson MD, Robinette R, Ha J, Dorsa DM. Ontogeny of human brain dopamine receptors: I: differential expression of [3H]-SCH23390 and [3H]-YM09151-2 specific binding. Brain Res Dev Brain Res 1998;106:109–117. - PubMed
    1. Zhang L, Lidow MS. D1 dopamine receptor regulation of cell cycle in FGF- and EGF-supported primary cultures of embryonic cerebral cortical precursor cells. Int J Dev Neurosci 2002;20:593–606. - PubMed
    1. Herlenius E, Lagercrantz H. Development of neurotransmitter systems during critical periods. Exp Neurol 2004;190 suppl 1:S8–21. - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances