Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder Details

Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) refers to a range of negative consequences of development that result from maternal drinking during pregnancy. Can children with FASD suffer from many problems, including epilepsy, characterized by spontaneous recurrence of unprovoked seizures, which affects 0.6 percent of the general population. The new study found a much higher prevalence of epilepsy or a history of seizures in individuals with FASD.

The results will be published in No. 2010 in June of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research and is now available to view early.

"There are very few studies have examined the relationship between seizures and epilepsy among individuals with FASD," noted James Reynolds, a senior scientist in the Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology and the Centre for Neuroscience Studies at Queen's University. Reynolds is one of the authors of the study.

"Many patients with epilepsy have a history of exposure to an insult before birth, so we reasoned that prenatal exposure to alcohol can be such an insult epileptogenic", said Peter Carlen, a neurologist and senior scientists to the division of neurobiology fundamental in West Toronto hospital, and another of the authors of the study. "Secondly, there is considerable overlap in the structures of the brain that is deficient as a result of chronic exposure to alcohol before birth and those that are associated with seizures, particularly in the hippocampus in the brain. Third, the previous studies failed to examine other complications that occur in mothers who drink alcoholduring pregnancy, such as the effects of drinking on the seizure activity. Finally, previous studies used small sample sizes and failed to clear definition of seizures and FASD ".

"Recently, scientists began to investigate whether fetal exposure to alcohol increases the risk for the development of behavioral health and other neurological problems," said Dan Savage, a professor of rulers' and chairman of neuroscience at the University of New Mexico. "Has already begun is evidence to suggest that children who suffer from FASD are more prone to alcoholism, drug abuse and depression later in life. While it is too early in the history of relatively young of this field of research to evaluate whether maternaldrinking during pregnancy increases the risk of neurological disorders related to aging, such as stroke or Parkinson's disease, several recent studies retrospectively on a large scale and to study whether fetal alcohol exposure increases the risk of epilepsy. "
This study, researchers looked at the history of 425 individuals (254 males, 171 females), aged between two and 49 years old, from clinics FASD Mon Were examined relations between the confirmed diagnosis of FASD and other risk factors - such as exposure to alcohol or other drugs, type of birth, trauma - for co-existence of epilepsy or a history of seizures.

"This study revealed a much higher prevalence of epilepsy and the date of seizure in individuals with a diagnosis of FASD", said Stephanie H. Bell, a researcher at the Center for Neuroscience at Queen's University, and author of the book corresponding to this study. "In the general population, is expected to be less than one percent to the development of epilepsy; with FASD, was six percent and 12 percent of epilepsy and one or more seizures in their lives. The subjects were more prone to epilepsy, or a history of seizures and, if exposure to alcohol occurred in the first three months of pregnancy or throughout the entire. "

"Although this report supports the growing impression that the fetal exposure to alcohol may predispose the immature brain to the development of epilepsy, the results do not prove a direct cause-and effectrelationship FASD and epilepsy," he warned Savage. "The establishment of a direct link between these clinical conditions would be a tough challenge given our incomplete understanding of how ethanol damages the developing brain and what changes in the tissues of the brain neuropathological lead to the development of different types of epilepsy."

However, Savage said it is clear that alcohol can cause damage in the brain of the fetus. "To what extent this damage and lead to negative consequences for neurobehavioral depends on the likely large number of factors, including the size and patterns of ofdrinking during pregnancy, and the presence of risk factors of pregnancy, such as smoking, drug abuse, poor prenatal care, and the presence of other diseases affecting the health of the mother, such as diabetes or high blood pressure, "he said. "As risk factors accumulate, the risk of negative consequences also increase nerve growth."

And missed often "epilepsy and / or seizures in children in the assessments of clinical," noted Carlen ", and if untreated can lead to cognitive problems increasing or unacknowledged. In the long run, it can also lead to problems in attention, memory, and the risk of heart unattended and dangerous. Many of the children may not have a tendency to epilepsy and has no physical signs of FASD, but the doctor must be aware of the alcohol exposureduring pregnancy when considering the health of their patients and diagnose the causes of certain. "