Abstract
Prenatal alcohol exposure has been linked to a broad range of developmental deficits, with eyeblink classical conditioning (EBC) among the most sensitive endpoints. This fMRI study compared EBC-related brain activity in 47 children with fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), partial FAS (PFAS), heavily exposed (HE) non-syndromal children, and healthy controls. All of the children had previously participated in two EBC studies conducted as part of our longitudinal study of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders. Although learning-related behavioral differences were seen in all groups during the scans, controls showed more conditioned responses (CR) than the alcohol-exposed groups. Despite lower conditioning levels relative to controls, the exposed groups exhibited extensive cerebellar activations. Specifically, children with FAS/PFAS showed increased activation of cerebellar lobule VI in session 2, while HE children showed increased activation in session 1. Continuous measures of prenatal alcohol use correlated with learning-related activations in cerebellum and frontal cortices. Only controls showed significant cerebellar activation-CR correlations in the deep nuclei and lateral lobule VI, suggesting that these key regions supporting EBC may be functionally disorganized in alcohol-exposed children. These findings are the first to characterize abnormalities in brain function associated with the behavioral conditioning deficits seen in children with prenatal alcohol exposure.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 3752-3767 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | Cerebral Cortex |
Volume | 27 |
Issue number | 7 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jul 1 2017 |
Keywords
- Cerebellum
- cerebellar volume
- fetal alcohol syndrome
- gray matter volume
- learning
- prenatal alcohol exposure
- white matter volume
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Cognitive Neuroscience
- Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience