Substance Use
Associations of In-Utero Maternal Exposures to Substances and Mood Disorders and Offspring Electroencephalogram (EEG) at Birth Nicolò Pini* Nicolò Pini Lynn Chen J. David Nugent William P. Fifer Michael M. Myers Amy J. Elliott Seonjoo Lee Ayesha Sania
Background: In-utero exposure to substances and maternal mood disorders can adversely affect fetal brain development. We examined the combined impact of exposure clusters on neonatal brain activity, in the Safe Passage Study (PASS).
Methods: We derived clusters of in-utero maternal alcohol (PAE), tobacco (PTE) exposure, and maternal anxiety/depressive symptoms. EEG data from Northern Plains, US, was collected in term newborns at birth (N=824). EEG power was decomposed in delta, theta, low alpha, high alpha, beta, and gamma bands and computed in frontal-polar (FP), polar (PO), temporal (TE), parietal (PA), occipital (OC), frontal-midline (FM), and central-midline (CM) regions. Associations between EEG power and clusters were examined using ANOVA, adjusting for infant sex, hours of life, and gestational age; corrected for false discovery rate.
Results: Analysis yielded 4 groups: Low Risk (67.8%); low PAE, PTE, and anxiety/depression; Mood+ (26.6%); low PAE and PTE, high anxiety/depression; Smoking+ (5.1%); no PAE, high PTE, and moderate anxiety/depression; and Drinking+ (0.4%); high PAE, no PTE, and high anxiety/depression. We detected differences in low frequencies power (delta and gamma) in frontal (FP, PO, TE), and posterior (PA, OC) regions. In frontal regions, average delta power was higher for the low-risk group compared to mood+ (1.48×10-6±5.19×10-7, p<0.05) or smoking+ (3.32×10-6±1.27×10-6, p<0.05) or drinking+ (6.23×10-6±2.35×10-6, p<0.05) groups. In posterior regions, average delta power was lower in the drinking+ group compared to low-risk (-6.80×10-6±-2.35×10-6, p<0.05) or mood+ (-5.94×10-6±-2.36×10-6, p<0.05) or smoking+ (-5.57×10-6±-2.47×10-6, p<0.05) groups. Similar results were found for average theta power.
Conclusion: Prenatal maternal mood and substance use are differentially associated with EEG activity at birth in the offspring. Future work will focus on investigating the contribution of these factors to the trajectories of brain development.
