Prenatal Cannabis and XXXX Exposure in Relation to Brain Morphology: A Prospective Neuroimaging Study in Young @entity1 .

@entity835 @entity1 @entity286
BACKGROUND: Cannabis use during pregnancy has been associated with negative behavioral outcomes and psychopathology in offspring. However, there has been little research evaluating alterations in brain structure as a result of maternal @entity835 use. In this prospective study, we investigated the association between prenatal @entity835 exposure and brain morphology in young @entity1 . METHODS: We matched 96 @entity1 prenatally exposed to @entity286 only (without @entity835 ) with 113 unexposed control subjects on the basis of age and gender and subsequently selected 54 @entity1 exposed to prenatal @entity835 (mostly combined with @entity286 exposure). These @entity1 (aged 6 to 8 years) were part of a population-based study in the Netherlands, the Generation R Study, and were followed from pregnancy onward. We assessed brain volumetric measures and cortical thickness in magnetic resonance imaging scans using FreeSurfer. We performed vertex-wise analyses in FreeSurfer and linear regression analyses adjusting for relevant covariates using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences. RESULTS: Prenatal @entity835 exposure was not associated with global brain volumes, such as total brain volume, gray matter volume, or white matter volume. However, prenatal @entity835 exposure was associated with differences in cortical thickness: compared with nonexposed control subjects, @entity835 -exposed @entity1 had thicker frontal cortices. Prenatal @entity286 exposure compared with nonexposed control subjects was associated with cortical thinning, primarily in the superior frontal and superior parietal cortices. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggest an association between prenatal @entity835 exposure and cortical thickness in @entity1 . Further research is needed to explore the causal nature of this association.
