ArticleBrain and behavior2018
Prenatal alcohol exposure affects brain function during place learning in a virtual environment differently in boys and girls.
Article in Brain and behavior, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 21 citations in OpenAlex.
- The importance of non-coding RNAs in environmental stress-related developmental brain disorders: A systematic review of evidence associated with exposure to alcohol, anesthetic drugs, nicotine, and viral infections.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2021Pooled it
- Infant circulating MicroRNAs as biomarkers of effect in fetal alcohol spectrum disorders.Scientific reports · 2021Trial
- Large-scale in vivo electrophysiology analysis reveals opposing thalamic and hippocampal excitability after third-trimester-equivalent alcohol exposure in mice.Journal of neurophysiology · 2026Article
- Unsupervised Phenotyping Reveals Disrupted Neural Firing Characteristics in the Anterior Thalamus and Surrounding Brain Regions Following Third-Trimester Equivalent Alcohol Exposure in Mice.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders.Current topics in behavioral neurosciences · 2025Review
- The Neurobiology of Learning and Memory in Rodent Models of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2025Review
- Impact of Developmental Alcohol Exposure on the Thalamus.Advances in experimental medicine and biology · 2025Review
- Sex-specific Differences in Resting Oscillatory Dynamics in Children with Prenatal Alcohol Exposure.Neuroscience · 2024Article
- Binge-like ethanol exposure during the brain growth spurt disrupts the function of retrosplenial cortex-projecting anterior thalamic neurons in adolescent mice.Neuropharmacology · 2023Article
- Effects of genetics and sex on adolescent behaviors following neonatal ethanol exposure in BXD recombinant inbred strains.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2023Article
- Unraveling the complex relationship between prenatal alcohol exposure, hippocampal LTP, and learning and memory.Frontiers in molecular neuroscience · 2023Review
- Mechanisms Underlying Cognitive Impairment Induced by Prenatal Alcohol Exposure.Brain sciences · 2022Review
- Article
- Altered Resting-State Neural Oscillations and Spectral Power in Children with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2021Article
- Reduced Hippocampal Volumes Partially Mediate Effects of Prenatal Alcohol Exposure on Spatial Navigation on a Virtual Water Maze Task in Children.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2020Article
- Spatial Navigation in Children and Young Adults with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders.Alcoholism, clinical and experimental research · 2019Article
- The effects of developmental alcohol exposure on the neurobiology of spatial processing.Neuroscience and biobehavioral reviews · 2019Review
- Prenatal alcohol exposure affects brain function during place learning in a virtual environment differently in boys and girls.Brain and behavior · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
6 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
introductionAlthough performance deficits in place learning have been reported in fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD), neural correlates of these deficits have not been investigated. This functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study of 57 children (41 alcohol-exposed; 16 controls; mean age = 9.4 years; 29 boys) examined effects of prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) on place learning in a virtual environment, the computer-generated (CG) arena.
methodsFunctional magnetic resonance imaging data were acquired while children passively viewed a recording of an experimenter completing the task. Visible-target blocks involved navigation to a visible platform. During invisible-target blocks, the platform appeared only when the experimenter moved over it. After the scan, all children performed a post-test during which they had to navigate to the location of the invisible platform.
resultsAlthough there were no group differences in post-test performance for sex or FASD diagnosis, PAE in boys was associated with poorer performance and reduced activation in the parahippocampal gyrus (PHG), precuneus, posterior cingulate, frontal and temporal lobes, caudate, insula, claustrum, lentiform nucleus, and thalamus. By contrast, PAE was not associated with performance or activation in any regions in girls. DISCUSSION AND
conclusionGirls and boys are known to use different navigation strategies. Boys rely more on an allocentric navigational strategy and girls more on landmarks. Poorer recruitment of the PHG, a region known to mediate allocentric navigation, in more heavily exposed boys may explain the observed dose-dependent place learning deficit. The absence of PAE effects in girls suggests that landmark-based navigational strategies may be less affected by alcohol exposure.
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Registered trials
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