Home > Prenatal exposure to smoking linked to ADHD.

[Irish Medical Times] Prenatal exposure to smoking linked to ADHD. (22 May 2014)

External website: http://www.imt.ie/clinical/2014/05/prenatal-exposu...

Individuals prenatally exposed to tobacco smoke exhibited weaker response in some regions of the brain while processing a task that measures inhibition control and may be linked to attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), new research has found.


Prenatal tobacco smoke exposure is already known to be a risk factor for adverse physical and mental outcomes in children. Growing evidence also suggests that smoking during pregnancy may increase the risk of psychopathology such as ADHD, with those with the condition exhibiting poor inhibitory control.

The researchers from the Mannheim/Heidelberg University, Germany, performed functional magnetic resonance imaging on young adults aged 25 years who had been followed since birth to examine the effect of prenatal tobacco smoke exposure on neural activity implicated in externalising disorders, such as ADHD, with measures of inhibitory control.

Lifetime ADHD symptoms were measured over a period of 13 years (from two to 15 years of age). The study, published in JAMA Psychiatry, included 178 mothers (140 of whom were nonsmokers) and 175 offspring for whom ADHD symptoms were measured throughout childhood.


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