UF researchers garner $3.5 million federal grant renewal to continue studying prenatal cocaine exposure's effects

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GAINESVILLE-The National Institute on Drug Abuse has awarded University of Florida medical researchers a five-year, $3.5 million grant to continue studying the effects of prenatal cocaine exposure on child development.

The money will be used to move the project into its next phase: focusing on the developmental progress of children ages 10 to 12 whose mothers used cocaine during pregnancy, said Dr. Marylou Behnke, a professor of pediatrics in the division of neonatology at UF’s College of Medicine. Behnke is collaborating with Fonda Davis Eyler, also a professor of pediatrics.

UF researchers have been studying about 300 children from birth since their research began more than a decade ago. Half the study participants were exposed to cocaine in utero, half were not.

In this next arm of the study, all will undergo intelligence and achievement tests, including assessments of language ability, attention, problem-solving and abstract thinking, Eyler said. Researchers also will ask the youngsters about their attitudes, behavior, family relationships and friendships. In addition, they will assess the children’s home environment and interview their caregivers and schoolteachers.

In 1998, UF researchers reported findings refuting the long-held belief that cocaine-exposed babies often suffer devastating birth defects, such as anomalies of the skull, heart, skeleton or gastrointestinal tract.

Instead, prenatal cocaine exposure likely has far more subtle effects on long-term development, Eyler said. These effects may only now start to surface, as the children transition into pre-adolescence and confront the increased academic responsibilities and peer pressure associated with it.

“It’s fair to say that early on we did not find the dire kinds of problems people were expecting,” Behnke said. “I think that over time, as the kids have gotten older, we’ve begun to find some subtle differences between the groups. They are maturing more, and more is required of them cognitively and socially in the world. We may see some small effects we just couldn’t pick up on earlier.”

One example: head circumference at birth, which appears to be a marker for an indirect effect of cocaine, a finding the UF team reported earlier this year in the journal Neurotoxicology and Teratology.

“Head circumference at birth had a direct effect on 6-month developmental outcome, and cocaine had a direct effect on head circumference,” Behnke said. “So cocaine hasn’t been let off the hook entirely.”

Researchers also are interested in identifying factors that might offset any negative effects prenatal cocaine exposure might wreak, Eyler said.

“We want to know what it is about their lives that is helping the kids who are doing well,” she said. “Is there a low level of poverty among these children? Is it the influence of a caregiver, a coach, a friend or a teacher? What are the kinds of things that help children grow and develop?”

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Melanie Fridl Ross

Category:Awards & Honors