Effect of alcohol during pregnancy
For some time we know the harmful effects of alcohol on the developing fetal brain. It is now known that during the third period of pregnancy, this causes the death of neurons and also induces aberrant connections of some remaining.
It is known that alcohol intake during pregnancy causes defects in the newborn. However, despite this, an Institute of Medicine, United States (1996) indicates that 20% of women who drink alcohol during pregnancy continue to do so. As a result, one in every 1,000 newborns has the “FAS” with facial deformities, stunted growth and subsequent problems in learning and memory (low doses of alcohol on the fetal brain stem damage) . Currently new research clarifies how alcohol can cause some of this damage (Science, February 2000, vol. 287, pg. 1056).
John Olney, neuroscientist at the Medical School at Washington University in St. Louis, and colleagues, using rats as experimental animals, they find that alcohol works through the brain cell receptors for two neurotransmitters, the glutamate and GABA. As a result of induction of neuron death.
For two weeks after birth, the animals were exposed to high levels of blood alcohol. This period corresponds roughly to the stages of human brain development that occur during the third trimester of pregnancy (in the rat brain development is greatest after birth).
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Olney and colleagues, in fact, they were studying the effect of alcohol on the brain. They studied the effect of some chemicals called blocking NMDA receptors for glutamate, which is known to be an excitatory neurotransmitter. In such previous work had shown that chemicals produced blocking NMDA receptors during brain development, when they were making the connections of neurons, neuronal programmed death (apoptosis). Because they knew that ethanol blocked NMDA receptors and GABA receptors activated, decided to study the effect of alcohol on neurons. Their results show the same effect of alcohol, ending inducing the death of neurons.
James West, the Health Science Center at Texas A & M, which has also been studying the effect of alcohol on the brain, says that alcohol not only kills neurons, but also has other deleterious effects such as inducing erroneous connections of neurons, affecting ending later, many of the intellectual capacities of the child.
These new records are attached to what is already known, to call attention to how harmful is drinking alcohol, even in low doses during pregnancy. Given this fact, mothers who are only occasional drinkers, abstain from alcohol during pregnancy. Another problem is addicted mothers who are not able to stop alcohol intake. Hence the only solution would be to develop a drug that blocks this adverse effect. Knowing the mechanism of how alcohol acts on brain cells, opens a way in this regard.