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Animal Studies May Help Children Exposed To Drugs

Prenatal exposure to legal and illegal drugs is one of the single most preventable causes of developmental problems in North American children today. Large-scale investigations indicate that children who are born to mothers who abused drugs during pregnancy have an increased risk of substance abuse or addictive behaviors.

This review summarizes the experimental animal research that investigated the role of drug exposure in utero on the development of specific brain circuits that are involved in the reinforcing effects of addictive drugs, and on the behaviors that are controlled by these brain-reward systems. Identification of distinct aspects of animal behavior, the researchers reasoned, could be used as a “starting point” for human studies.

Findings of the animal research thus far indicate that the following four distinctions about animal behavior can produce new knowledge about the lasting effect of these drugs on the developing brain and later behavior. One concerns “self administration” or the “acquisition or willingness to work to obtain drugs.” The second is the “rewarding effect of those drugs” – that is, how brain-reward circuitry may encourage the pursuit/use of drugs. The third concerns “contextual associations” such as setting or environment and how those “cues” may influence craving or sensitivity. The fourth relates to “locomotor stimulation” and sensitization – that is, the “drug activation” itself.

The summary concludes that the neurobehavioral and neuropharmacological changes seen in animal research of prenatal drug exposure has yeilded insights into the basic workings of the brain reward systems involved with addictive drugs and later behavioral development. Scientists hope that these efforts will launch human studies leading to therapeutic interventions that will improve the outcome of drug exposed children.

(Malanga, CJ, Kosofsky, BE: Does drug abuse beget drug abuse? Behavioral analysis of addiction liability in animal models of prenatal drug exposure. Developmental Brain Research 147:47-57, 2003)

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