{"id":20975,"date":"2017-07-19T13:00:06","date_gmt":"2017-07-19T19:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/?p=20975"},"modified":"2017-07-19T13:11:40","modified_gmt":"2017-07-19T19:11:40","slug":"alcohol-in-pregnancy-causes-undetectable-neuronal-changes-in-offspring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/alcohol-in-pregnancy-causes-undetectable-neuronal-changes-in-offspring\/","title":{"rendered":"Alcohol in Pregnancy Causes Undetectable Neuronal Changes in Offspring"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Scientists at the Pompeu Fabra University have described the effects of binge drinking on pregnancy during the development of the nervous system. One episode of heavy drinking a week is enough to cause serious failures in the offspring that continue into adulthood<\/strong>. Alcohol affects the immune system of the newborn, which in turn attacks the neurons, causing damage to learning, memory and behavior<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Alcohol consumption during pregnancy produces malformations and serious alterations in the newborn<\/strong>. In fact, there is a name for these disorders: fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD)<\/strong>. Despite being easily avoidable, FASDs (which include a wide range of physical, cognitive and behavioral abnormalities that continue throughout adult life) continue to be the cause of most neurodevelopmental disorders, affecting between 2 and 5% of Western European population<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

For this reason, a group of researchers from the University Pompeu Fabra (UPF) decided to study what happens when alcohol consumption during pregnancy does not occur continuously, but follows a sporadic and binge pattern, using mouse models.<\/p>\n

According to their results, one episode of heavy drinking a week during gestation is sufficient to cause important alterations in behavior<\/strong>. “Our study reveals alterations in brain neurons that result in severe anomalies in the behavior of offspring<\/em>,” says Olga Valverde, leader of the study. “However, there are no malformations or changes in the body weight of offspring, so the disorder is invisible at birth<\/em>.”<\/p>\n

Changes to adulthood<\/strong><\/p>\n

Alcohol disrupts the embryonic development of the central nervous system, causing long-term poor cognitive and behavioral function<\/strong>. In addition, it has been shown that alcohol can strongly activate the immune system that protects the function of neurons, contributing to brain damage and neurodegeneration in adolescents and adults<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

“We have observed an increase in certain proinflammatory factors in the brains of offspring affected by maternal sporadic consumption of alcohol<\/strong><\/em>,” says Valverde. This imbalance causes the immune system to attack the myelin<\/strong>, a cellular layer that surrounds the nerve and that facilitates that the electrical impulses are transmitted efficiently along the neurons and therefore, that the nervous message is transmitted.<\/p>\n

“Probably, exposure to alcohol causes changes in the immune system that persist into adulthood, affecting learning, memory and behavior<\/em>,” she adds.<\/p>\n

“For the time being we do not know whether persistent neurobehavioral dysfunctions are related to neuroinflammation or myelin alterations, but according to our results, anti-inflammatories should be considered as a possible treatment to prevent brain damage caused by alcohol consumption during pregnancy<\/em><\/strong>,” concludes Valverde.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Source: <\/strong>SINC<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scientists at the Pompeu Fabra University have described the effects of binge drinking on pregnancy during the development of the nervous system. One episode of heavy drinking a week is enough to cause serious failures in the offspring that continue into adulthood. Alcohol affects the immune system of the newborn, which in turn attacks the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":20984,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[16,17],"class_list":["post-20975","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-actualidad-en-la-salud","tag-adicciones","tag-materna","cat-3-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20975","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20975"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20975\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20985,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20975\/revisions\/20985"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20984"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20975"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20975"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.salud.carlosslim.org\/english2\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20975"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}