Effects of gestational cocaine exposure on neurocognitive development

This article explores the relationship between gestational cocaine exposure and human neurocognitive development. The hypothesis is that cocaine affects the blood flow to the fetus during pregnancy. The study went on to explore 7 neurocognitive systems. The systems were split into frontal and non-frontal systems – the frontal systems included cognitive control, working memory, and reward processing, while the non-cognitive systems included language, memory, spatial cognition, and visual cognition. A population of 120 middle-school aged and low socioeconomic African American children were chosen for this study and were followed since birth. Half the children were exposed to cocaine during pregnancy, and the other half was not. Their mothers were interviewed and information on their substance use was recorded. The study included tobacco, marijuana, and alcohol use as well as cocaine use. At an average age of 12 years, the children were tested in the seven different systems. The results showed that there was no difference between the two groups, which means that gestational cocaine exposure had no effects on neurocognitive development in the children studied. When factors such as age, gender, and exposure to the other substances were taken into account, gestational cocaine exposure still had no effect on neurocognitive development. The only substance that showed any difference was alcohol – the children that were exposed to alcohol while their mothers were pregnant did show a difference in the outcome. Age also showed to have an effect on the results, but not related to any drugs. The results of this study were unexpected because previous studies have revealed that gestational cocaine exposure has specific effects on language, attention, and perceptual reasoning.

Source: http://www.sciencedirect.com.ezaccess.libraries.psu.edu/science/article/pii/S0892036209001494?np=y