ArticleJournal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association2014
Do maternal opioids reduce neonatal regional brain volumes? A pilot study.
Article in Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 43 papers.
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Who cites it
43 citing papers in PubMed, 89 citations in OpenAlex.
- Antenatal Opioid Exposure and Cerebral Cortical Maturation in Newborns.JAMA network open · 2026Article
- Association between prenatal opioid exposure and long-term neurodevelopmental disorders among children: a nationwide cohort study : Prenatal opioid exposure and neurodevelopment.BMC pediatrics · 2026Article
- Anxiety, Depression, and Emotional Dysregulation Following Prenatal Substance Exposure.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2026Review
- Perinatal fentanyl exposure drives enduring addiction risk and central amygdala gene dysregulation.Neuropharmacology · 2025Article
- Children had smaller brain volumes and cortical surface areas after prenatal opioid maintenance therapy exposure.Acta paediatrica (Oslo, Norway : 1992) · 2025Article
- Prenatal substance exposure and infant neurodevelopment: a review of magnetic resonance imaging studies.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2025Review
- Impact of Intrauterine Insults on Fetal and Postnatal Cerebellar Development in Humans and Rodents.Cells · 2024Review
- Ultrasound evaluation of brain parenchyma in preterm infants with prenatal opioid exposure.Journal of perinatology : official journal of the California Perinatal Association · 2024Article
- Neural and behavioral indicators of cognitive control in preschoolers with and without prenatal opioid exposure.Child neuropsychology : a journal on normal and abnormal development in childhood and adolescence · 2024Article
- Development, Insults and Predisposing Factors of the Brain's Predictive Coding System to Chronic Perceptual Disorders-A Life-Course Examination.Brain sciences · 2024Article
- Decreased myelin-related gene expression in the nucleus accumbens during spontaneous neonatal opioid withdrawal in the absence of long-term behavioral effects in adult outbred CFW mice.Neuropharmacology · 2023Article
- Neonatal opioid toxicity: opioid withdrawal (abstinence) syndrome with emphasis on pharmacogenomics and respiratory depression.Archives of toxicology · 2023Review
- Decreased myelin-related gene expression in the nucleus accumbens during spontaneous neonatal opioid withdrawal in the absence of long-term behavioral effects in adult outbred CFW mice.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2023Article
- Outcomes of Babies with Opioid Exposure (OBOE): protocol of a prospective longitudinal cohort study.Pediatric research · 2023Article
- Potential problems and solutions of opioid-based treatment in neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome (NOWS): a scoping review protocol.BMJ open · 2023Article
- Prenatal heroin exposure alters brain morphology and connectivity in adolescent mice.NMR in biomedicine · 2023Article
- Body size and brain volumetry in the rat following prolonged morphine administration in infancy and adulthood.Frontiers in pain research (Lausanne, Switzerland) · 2023Article
- A review of the genomics of neonatal abstinence syndrome.Frontiers in genetics · 2023Review
- Alterations of brain microstructures in a mouse model of prenatal opioid exposure detected by diffusion MRI.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Thalamocortical functional connectivity in infants with prenatal opioid exposure correlates with severity of neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome.Neuroradiology · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
11 authors at 7 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
objectiveA substantial number of children exposed to gestational opioids have neurodevelopmental, behavioral and cognitive problems. Opioids are not neuroteratogens but whether they affect the developing brain in more subtle ways (for example, volume loss) is unclear. We aimed to determine the feasibility of using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to assess volumetric changes in healthy opioid-exposed infants. STUDY
designObservational pilot cohort study conducted in two maternity hospitals in New South Wales, Australia. Maternal history and neonatal urine and meconium screens were obtained to confirm drug exposure. Volumetric analysis of MRI scans was performed with the ITK-snap program.
resultScans for 16 infants (mean (s.d.) gestational age: 40.9 (1.5) weeks, birth weight: 3022.5 (476.6) g, head circumference (HC): 33.7 (1.5 cm)) were analyzed. Six (37.5%) infants had HC <25th percentile. Fourteen mothers used methadone, four used buprenorphine and 11 used more than one opioid (including heroin, seven). All scans were structurally normal whole brain volumes (357.4 (63.8)) and basal ganglia (14.5 (3.5)) ml were significantly smaller than population means (425.4 (4.8), 17.1 (4.4) ml, respectively) but lateral ventricular volumes (3.5 (1.8) ml) were larger than population values (2.1(1.5)) ml.
conclusionOur pilot study suggests that brain volumes of opioid-exposed babies may be smaller than population means and that specific regions, for example, basal ganglia, that are involved in neurotransmission, may be particularly affected. Larger studies including correlation with neurodevelopmental outcomes are warranted to substantiate this finding.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.