By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Children whose mothers took methamphetamine during pregnancy have brain abnormalities that may explain the developmental problems they often experience, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.
Brain scans on a group of 3- and 4-year-old children showed abnormal development in the white matter, which carries messages across the brain, compared with children who did not have prenatal exposure to the drug, often called "meth."
The study provides some of the first physical evidence to show brain changes that can occur during fetal development when the mother used the drug during pregnancy.
"Methamphetamine use is an increasing problem among women of childbearing age, leading to an increasing number of children with prenatal meth exposure," Dr. Linda Chang of the University of Hawaii, whose study appears in the journal Neurology, said in a statement.
Methamphetamine is a highly addictive stimulant that users inject, snort, smoke or swallow.
A U.S. government survey showed that in 2007, about 13 million Americans ages 12 and up reported using methamphetamine at least once in their lifetimes, or 5 percent of them.
Chang and colleagues used a new magnetic resonance imaging, or MRI, technique known as diffusion tensor imaging to look for abnormalities in tiny brain structures.
"It's actually measuring how quickly water molecules are bouncing around in the brain," Chang said in a telephone interview. Continued...
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