Cocaine is pharmacologically active in the nonhuman primate fetal brain

• Published in: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences - PNAS Vol. 107; no. 4; pp. 1582 - 1587
• Main Authors: Benveniste, Helene, Fowler, Joanna S, Rooney, William D, Scharf, Bruce A, Backus, W. Walter, Izrailtyan, Igor, Knudsen, Gitte M, Hasselbalch, Steen G, Volkow, Nora D
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States National Academy of Sciences 26-01-2010; National Acad Sciences
• Subjects: Anesthesia; Animals; Baboons; Biological Sciences; Brain; Brain - drug effects; Brain - metabolism; Cocaine; Cocaine - pharmacology; Effects; Female; Fetus; Fetus - drug effects; Fetuses; Glucose; Glucose - metabolism; Imaging; Macaca radiata; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Maternal Exposure; Maternal-Fetal Exchange - drug effects; Metabolism; Papio papio; Positron emission tomography; Pregnancy; Primates; Reproduction
• ISSN: 0027-8424; 1091-6490
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0909585107

Cocaine use during pregnancy is deleterious to the newborn child, in part via its disruption of placental blood flow. However, the extent to which cocaine can affect the function of the fetal primate brain is still an unresolved question. Here we used PET and MRI and show that in third-trimester pregnant nonhuman primates, cocaine at doses typically used by drug abusers significantly increased brain glucose metabolism to the same extent in the mother as in the fetus (~100%). Inasmuch as brain glucose metabolism is a sensitive marker of brain function, the current findings provide evidence that cocaine use by a pregnant mother will also affect the function of the fetal brain. We are also unique in showing that cocaine's effects in brain glucose metabolism differed in pregnant (increased) and nonpregnant (decreased) animals, which suggests that the psychoactive effects of cocaine are influenced by the state of pregnancy. Our findings have clinical implications because they imply that the adverse effects of prenatal cocaine exposure to the newborn child include not only cocaine's deleterious effects to the placental circulation, but also cocaine's direct pharmacological effect to the developing fetal brain.