Xy. Guo et al., COGNITIVE BRAIN POTENTIAL ALTERATIONS IN BOYS EXPOSED TO OPIATES - IN-UTERO AND LIFE-STYLE COMPARISONS, Addictive behaviors, 19(4), 1994, pp. 429-441
Several studies have observed that intrauterine exposure to opiates re
sults in emotional and cognitive complications for the child, but gene
tic and postnatal social-environmental factors may also affect the CNS
development of these children. To assess the relative contribution of
the in utero and social-environmental (lifestyle) effects of opiate e
xposure, event-related potentials (ERPs) and performance were studied
in three groups of 7- to 12-year-old boys: (1) the in utero/lifestyle
group (IU/LS) contained 16 boys who were exposed to opiates (in utero
and lived with opiate-abusing mothers, (2) the lifestyle group (LS) in
cluded 14 boys who lived with opiate-abusing mothers, and (3) the cont
rol group (CON) composed of 13 boys. The cognitive ERP components and
task performance were recorded in the Auditory Rare Event Monitoring (
AREM) task and the Sternberg Memory task (Sternberg, 1975). On the ARE
M and Sternberg Memory tasks, P200 component was significantly decreas
ed for the IU/LS and LS groups. On the Sternberg Memory task, percent
correct was also significantly impaired in IU/LS and LS groups. The ER
P alterations in the boys living with opiate-abusing mothers with and
without intrauterine opiate exposure were similar. A dysfunctional soc
ial environment may contribute to the cognitive deficits seen in the s
ons of opiate-abusing mothers.