Punitive legal approaches to the problem of prenatal drug exposure

Legislatures and courts have responded prematurely to the problem of prenatal drug exposure through a variety of criminal and civil legal sanctions to deter drug use and to protect fetal health. A review of the case law demonstrates that significant statutory and constitutional difficulties limit the effectiveness of these sanctions and ultimately inhibit their applicability. These constraints require that any governmental intervention through the courts be based upon individual judicial findings of imminent harm to the child and maternal unfitness in neglect proceedings.     

Intelligence and school readiness in preschool children with prenatal drug exposure.

This prospective, longitudinal study examined factors affecting intelligence and school readiness in children 4-5 years of age with prenatal cocaine/opiate exposure. Intelligence and school readiness scores were not significantly different for the drug-exposed group (N = 104) than for unexposed, demographically matched controls (N = 35), although both groups scored slightly below average. Caregivers of drug-exposed children scored significantly lower in intelligence and reading achievement than caregivers of controls; both were below average. Caregiver reading scores accounted for the largest variance in both child intelligence and school readiness; for school readiness, birth weight also contributed but was less important in the model. Neither prenatal drug exposure nor continuing caregiver drug use was significant in the regression analyses. The relationship between child scores and caregiver reading achievement is consistent with studies showing the importance of a stimulating, supportive home environment, and suggests interventions to foster caregiver literacy skills and facilitate caregiver-child cognitive interactions such as reading to the child.     

Neurobiology of prenatal cocaine exposure effect on developing monoamine systems

Cocaine and crack belong to a broad category of agents that act primarily as central nervous system stimulants at the level of the monoaminergic neurotransmitter system (dopamine, norepinephrine, and serotonin). These neurotransmitters are involved in the regulation of a number of basic psychological functions including attention and arousal and play a crucial role in the defining of brain structure and neuronal formation. This paper outlines what is currently known about the direct effects of cocaine on the mature and developing central nervous system. Three general points are reviewed: (1) Cocaine has differing effects on structural and functional brain development throughout gestation (e.g., there is not a single, all or none effect); (2) No one area of the brain is singularly affected. Areas related by the monoaminergic system are differentially influenced and affecting one area may result in a functional change in another; and (3) Because substantial brain growth, synaptic formation, and remodeling occur in the first months after birth, ongoing postnatal exposure to cocaine also carries risk for direct effects on brain function. Understanding the developmental neurobiological effects of cocaine provides data to guide studies in infants and young children of how prenatal cocaine exposure may contribute to specific, biologically based areas of neurological vulnerability that will be expressed behaviorally and developmentally in the first 3 to 5 years of life.     

Executive functioning predicts social skills following prenatal alcohol exposure.

Adverse sequelae of prenatal alcohol exposure include executive function and social skills impairments, although these two domains have not been empirically linked in alcohol-exposed individuals. This study investigated this relationship using the BRIEF and the SSRS in 98 children aged 6 to 11 years. Executive functions explained a significant percentage of variance in parent and teacher rated social skills. No differences were found among children with diagnoses of FAS, partial FAS, or alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder. It may be helpful to consider executive functioning in designing social skills interventions for alcohol-exposed children whether or not they have full FAS.     

An 8-year study of multiple influences on drug use and drug use consequences

Multiple long-term influences on young adult drug use and abuse were tested within an interactionist perspective using latent-variable causal models. Intrapersonal influences included early drug use and social conformity. Proximal interpersonal influences were captured by perceived peer drug use, perceived adult drug use, and family disruption. More distal influences included perceptions of community approval or disapproval for drug use. Outcome measures included not only use of drugs but also disruptive drug use (getting high at work or school) and self-admitted problems with drugs. Data were obtained from 654 participants at three equally spaced time points during an 8-year longitudinal study that began when the subjects were in junior high school. Confirmatory factor analyses were used to test the adequacy of the hypothesized measurement model. Subsequently, a structural equation, or path model, was used to examine the across-time relations among the latent and manifest variables. Stability effects were found for all repeatedly measured latent variables across the 4-year spans. Social conformity strongly influenced other latent variables across time. Early drug use and perceived adult drug use were prominent predictors of young adult drug use, whereas prior drug use predicted disruptive drug use and a lack of social conformity predicted problems with drug use. Early adult alcohol use predicted later disruptive drug use and problems with drug use. Perceived adult drug use generally influenced later alcohol use, whereas peer drug use influenced later cannabis and hard-drug use. Implications for prevention and treatment using a multicausal interactionist perspective are discussed.     

An index of prenatal steroid exposure predicts adult face perception skills

Face perception skills are fundamental to social cognition, yet they vary markedly across individuals. This diversity has stimulated controversy over the relative contributions of genetic factors, prenatal environment, and postnatal experience to face perception. Recent twin studies have found that face perception is heritable, highlighting the potential for substantial prenatal determination of these skills. In contrast, previous work on potential influences of the prenatal hormonal environment on social cognition have found no association between 2D:4D, a marker for prenatal androgen exposure, and processing of facial emotional expressions, apparently precluding a major role for prenatal hormones in governing face perception. We propose that substantial predictive relationships between 2D:4D and face perception may have been masked in previous work because the task employed required both face perception and processing of others?? emotions, the latter component being greatly influenced by circulating hormones in adults. To assess prenatal hormone influences on face perception without requiring emotion processing, we related 2D:4D to the face inversion effect (FIE), a measure of the recruitment of specialist face processes to visual perception. The magnitude of the resulting predictive relationship (r = .52) compared surprisingly well with that found between identical twins?? face perception (rs = .27?C.61), suggesting that mechanisms of 2D:4D may account for a substantial proportion of perinatal influences on face processing. Furthermore, we employed 2D:4D as a common scale to map individual differences in the FIE onto prenatal testosterone:estrogen ratios, assayed by Lutchmaya, Baron-Cohen, Raggatt, Knickmeyer, and Manning (Early Human Development 77:23?C28, 2004). The substantial overlap between the two data sets further implicates prenatal steroids in adult face perception skills.     

Beyond targets: consequences of vicarious exposure to misogyny at work

The present study tested a model examining 2 indicators of a hostile interpersonal workplace climate for women-observed hostility (i.e., incivility and sexual harassment) toward women and perceived organizational unresponsiveness to sexual harassment--and how they relate to well-being and withdrawal for employees. Participants included 871 female and 831 male employees from a public university. According to structural equation analyses, observing hostility toward women and perceiving the organization as lax about harassment predict lower well-being, which translates into higher organizational withdrawal for both female and male employees. Results hold even after controlling for personal mistreatment, negative affectivity, and observed hostility toward men. These findings suggest that working in a misogynistic environment can have negative effects for all employees.     

Cry analysis detects subclinical effects of prenatal alcohol exposure in newborn infants

The threshold, latency, and peak fundamental frequency (basic pitch) of crying were sensitive to the subclinical effects of prenatal alcohol exposure through the first month of postnatal life. Whereas infants with prenatal alcohol exposure showed a lower cry pitch and higher cry threshold at 2 days of age, higher pitched cries, typical of nervous system insult, were evident at 14 and 28 days. A longer latency was also evident at 14 days.     

A dynamic extraversion model. The brain's response to a single dose of a stimulant drug

The aim of this paper is to present a mathematical dynamic modelling of the effect a stimulant drug has on different people which, at the same time, can be a useful tool for future brain studies. To this end, a dynamic model of the evolution of extraversion (considering its tonic and phasic aspects) has been constructed taking into account the unique personality trait theory and the general modelling methodology. This model consists of a delayed differential equation which, on one hand, considers that the active stimulus, a consequence of a single intake, is not constant; on the other hand, it contemplates that the state variable representing the phasic extraversion also represents the brain activation. The derivative of this state variable is calculated as the sum of the homeostatic control flow, the excitatory effect flow and the inhibitor effect flow. The solutions of this equation relate the tonic activation of an individual (that characterizes his or her personality) with his or her phasic activation level, whose evolution over time describes the organism's response to a single drug intake. These solutions quantitatively reproduce the predictions of current personality theories and anticipate vulnerability to drug misuse and addiction development.     

Psychological and social consequences of HIV exposure: Homosexuals in southern california

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the psychological and social consequences experienced by apparently healthy homosexual men who learn that they have positive results on the HIV antibody test, but who have not yet developed AIDS or ARC. Employing a census survey of the male membership of three homophile organizations in a Southern California county (n=1905), 30 HIV positives and 55 negatives completed a biographical questionnaire, the IPAT Anxiety Scale Questionnaire, the IPAT Depression Scale, and the Coping Strategies Inventory. Results indicate that HIV positives show considerable disorganization after hearing test results, have clinically high levels of anxiety (n=10), and clinically high levels of depression (n=14) when compared to the normative samples. Positives also reported pervasive changes in their sexual activity (n=30), and experienced negative consequences in social (n=15) and occupational functioning (n=10). Twelve subjects reported suicidal ideation after they heard the results of their testing, with one subject reporting a suicide attempt. The methodological limitations of the study were examined, with an emphasis on the limitations of the survey method. Speculations to account for the reported behaviors were discussed.     

Effects of cumulative prenatal substance exposure and environmental risks on children's developmental trajectories

Examined the effects of cumulative prenatal substance exposure and cumulative environmental risk on the developmental trajectories of 278 infants, toddlers, and preschool children. Results indicated that both cumulative risk indexes were significantly correlated. Results also indicated that both indexes were related to decrements in developmental trajectories (intercept and slope) from 3 to 57 months of age. Both prenatal exposure and environmental risk added unique variance to the prediction of developmental level and rate of growth when entered after covariates (i.e., birth weight and sex). However, across a number of models with and without covariates, environmental risk accounted for more variance in developmental trajectories than did prenatal exposure. Implications are discussed.     

Co-regulation of movement speed and accuracy by children with heavy prenatal alcohol exposure

The study investigated how children with heavy prenatal alcohol exposure regulate movement speed and accuracy during goal-directed movements. 16 children ages 7 to 17 years with confirmed histories of heavy in utero alcohol exposure, and 21 nonalcohol-exposed control children completed a series of reciprocal tapping movements between two spatial targets. 5 different targets sets were presented, representing a range of task difficulty between 2 and 6 bits of information. Estimates of percent error rate, movement time, slope, and linear fit of the resulting curve confirmed that for goal-directed, reciprocal tapping responses, performance of the group with prenatal alcohol exposure was described by a linear function, as predicted by Fitts' law, by sacrificing movement accuracy. The index of performance was the same for the two groups: it initially increased, then leveled off for more difficult movements.     

Effects of prenatal ethanol exposure on juvenile play-fighting and postpubertal aggression in rats

The effects of prenatal ethanol exposure on juvenile play-fighting and postpubertal aggressive behavior in rats were longitudinally assessed in the context of more conventionally applied physical and behavioral measures. Pregnant animals were treated with either 2 gm/kg/day ethanol or isocaloric sucrose over gestation Days 6-19. Reproduction and somatic variables included maternal weight over gestation, offspring weight over Days 1-90, and age at eye opening and incisor eruption. Behavioral variables consisted of negative geotaxis, olfactory discrimination, activity, juvenile play-fighting, and postpubertal aggression. Ethanol offspring had lower birth weights, but there was no significant prenatal treatment effect on subsequent offspring weights or on any other reproductive or somatic variable. Both male and female ethanol-exposed offspring exhibited more play-fighting responses when paired with same-sex controls. Postpubertal aggression levels were assessed in males only. Ethanol-exposed offspring were more aggressive than controls and there was a significant positive correlation between play-fighting and postpubertal aggression ranks. No other behavioral measures discriminated between prenatal treatment groups and none were significantly correlated with either play-fighting or postpubertal aggression rank. The results are consistent with the position that juvenile play-fighting and postpubertal aggression are subserved by common substrates. They also are consistent with predictions derived from the hypothesis concerning a response-inhibition deficit as an effect of prenatal ethanol exposure on behavior.