Research shows that alcohol exposure at specific times during pregnancy can affect the brain in various ways, resulting in a spectrum of brain disorders. Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders describes the range of conditions in children caused when the mothers drank alcohol during pregnancy. Symptoms vary greatly among children and can include all or a mix of physical, behavioral, and learning and thinking problems. Fetal alcohol syndrome is one of the five disorders that comprise fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD).
Glial Cells in Abnormal Brain Development
- As mentioned previously, complications range in quality and severity.
- One reason alcohol is dangerous during pregnancy is that it’s passed through your bloodstream to the fetus through the umbilical cord.
- Depending on the symptoms a child with FAS exhibits, they may need many doctor or specialist visits.
- Co-culturing neurons with astrocytes decreased GSH depletion and attenuated neuronal death following alcohol treatment (Watts et al., 2005; Rathinam et al., 2006).
More recently, neonatal alcohol exposure via vapor inhalation has been shown to increase GFAP expression in the cerebellum and hippocampus during the alcohol-withdrawal period (Topper et al., 2015). From these reports it can be concluded that the reduction of GFAP levels observed in vitro is recapitulated by in vivo experiments when alcohol is administered prenatally. However, the effect of neonatal exposure to alcohol on GFAP levels is not conclusive.
How to care for a baby with FASD
No one particular treatment is correct for everyone with fetal alcohol syndrome. FAS exists on a spectrum of disorders and the way each person is impacted by the condition can vary greatly. For some, it’s best to monitor their child’s progress throughout life, so it’s important to have a healthcare provider you trust. Microglia-conditioned media contributes to alcohol-induced apoptosis in immature hypothalamic neurons (Boyadjieva and Sarkar, 2010, 2013a,b). Neonatal alcohol exposure in rodents induces neurotoxicity in hypothalamic neurons in vivo, which appears to be mediated, at least in part, by microglia (Sarkar et al., 2007).
- As a result, individuals with FASD may have trouble with abstract reasoning, organization, planning, understanding or recalling a sequence of events, connecting cause and effect relationships, and/or regulating their own behaviours and emotions.
- Autopsies of infants born with FASD paint a grim picture of the effects of alcohol on the brain.
- The beginning of fetal development is the most important for the whole body, but organs like the brain continue to develop throughout pregnancy.
- One person might have only a few, while another person could experience all of them.
Physical signs
To find healthcare providers and clinics in your area, contact FASD United’s (formerly NOFAS) Family Navigator program which provides individuals living with FASDs and their family members and caregivers with expert, confidential support and referrals. The symptoms of this condition will be with the person throughout their entire life. Over time, a number of secondary effects can happen in people with FAS, particularly in those who aren’t treated for the condition in childhood.
- Specific deformities of the head and face, heart defects, and intellectual disability are seen with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS).
- Executive function is also impaired in individuals with FASD with deficits in response inhibition, concept formation, set shifting and planning (Guerri et al., 2009; Mattson et al., 2011).
- FASDs are a range of conditions that occur if a fetus is exposed to alcohol before birth.
- A more recent study from 2002 looked at the effects of multiple substance exposure during pregnancy.
However, these studies need to be validated in vivo and to be linked to behavioral outcomes. Molecular approaches for manipulating glial cell signaling and functions in vivo (for instance, Xie et al., 2015) and methods for ex-vivo isolation of specific brain cell populations are becoming available and should be used in FASD research. Several of the structural abnormalities observed in FASD and in FASD animal models are consistent with altered glial cell function. Defects in neuronal migration observed in FASD are likely due to reported effects of alcohol on radial glia. Prenatal alcohol can also induce agenesis or hypoplasia of the corpus callosum, which may be due to an effect of drunken baby syndrome alcohol on midline glial populations causing them to alter the signals these cells send to the axons that need to cross the midline into the opposite hemisphere. Studies on the effect of alcohol on these structures have not been carried out, but may represent a new, interesting avenue of investigation.
