TRANSPLACENTAL COCAINE EXPOSURE - A MOUSE MODEL DEMONSTRATING NEUROANATOMICAL AND BEHAVIORAL ABNORMALITIES

Between 10% and 15% of infants born in urban America today have been e xposed to cocaine in utero. clinical studies have suggested that impai rment of brain growth is the single best marker of significant prenata l cocaine exposure, and postnatal developmental compromised seen in a subset of affected children as a consequence of that exposure. We have developed an animal model, in mice, of prenatal cocaine exposure that has allowed us to dissociate the direct effects of cocaine in alterin g fetal development from the indirect effects associated with cocaine- induced malnutrition. We find that transplacental cocaine exposure ind ependently impairs fetal brain and body growth and results in behaviou ral deficits and permanent alterations in neocortical cytoarchitecture in exposed offspring.