Frontostriatal Connectivity in Children during Working Memory and the Effects of Prenatal Methamphetamine, Alcohol, and Polydrug Exposure

Abstract

Various abnormalities in frontal and striatal regions have been reported in children with prenatal alcohol and/or methamphetamine exposure. In a recent fMRI study, we observed a correlation between accuracy on a working-memory task and functional activation in the putamen in children with prenatal methamphetamine and polydrug exposure. Because the putamen is part of the corticostriatal motor loop whereas the caudate is involved in the executive loop, we hypothesized that a loss of segregation between distinct corticostriatal networks may occur in these participants. The current study was designed to test this hypothesis using functional connectivity MRI. We examined 50 children ranging in age from 7 to 15, including 19 with prenatal methamphetamine exposure (15 of whom had concomitant prenatal alcohol exposure), 13 with prenatal exposure to alcohol but not methamphetamine, and 18 unexposed controls. We measured the coupling between blood oxygenation level dependent (BOLD) fluctuations during a working-memory task in four striatal seed regions and those in the rest of the brain. We found that the putamen seeds showed increased connectivity with frontal brain regions involved in executive functions while the caudate seeds showed decreased connectivity with some of these regions in both groups of exposed subjects compared to controls. These findings suggest that localized brain abnormalities resulting from prenatal exposure to alcohol and/or methamphetamine lead to a partial rewiring of corticostriatal networks. These results represent important progress in the field, and could have substantial clinical significance in helping devise more targeted treatments and remediation strategies designed to better serve the needs of this population.

The Effect of Prenatal Methamphetamine Exposure on Recognition Memory in Adult Rats

“…The results have shown abnormal brain morphology, altered brain metabolism and impaired child executive functioning (Abar et al, 2014). Roussotte et al (2012) using the functional connectivity MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) found that the functional connectivity in the striatum of children with prenatal MA and/or alcohol exposure is altered that could explain some of the putative motor deficits. Furthermore, Chang et al (2004) measured regional brain volumes in 13 children with a history of MA exposure in utero.…”

Cerebral Magnetic Resonance Imaging in Children With Prenatal Drug Exposure

“…117,120 The number of prenatally opioid-exposed children included in analyses of BOLD response in paper III (n =11) was also similar to numbers of exposed children included in previous fMRI studies of children with prenatal exposure to alcohol, amphetamines, and tobacco (n = 7-23) reporting group differences in BOLD response during working memory. 145,146,174,175 5.2 Discussion of the results…”

Review of Current Neuroimaging Studies of the Effects of Prenatal Drug Exposure: Brain Structure and Function

“…Among pregnant women, the rate of any illicit drug use is 5.4% and has not changed significantly since 2010-2011 [12]. Use remains higher in younger women (14.6%, ages 18-25) compared to older women (3.2%, ages [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42][43][44]. A high proportion of women are using marijuana illegally and fail to disclose their use to their providers.…”

“…Prenatal alcohol is associated with overall reductions in global [38,39] and regional brain volume including the hippocampus, basal ganglia, cingulate cortex, and corpus callosum [37,[40][41][42][43]. Several studies indicate that reductions in brain volume linked to prenatal alcohol exposure were associated with deficits in cognitive function and facial dsymorphology.…”