This meta- analysis showed no significant impairments , at a non-conservative significance level of p < 0.05 , for cognitive , psychomotor or observed behavioural outcomes for chronic intra-uterine exposed infants and pre-school children compared to non-exposed infants and children .
However , all domains suggested a trend to poor outcomes in infants/children of opioid using mothers .
Conclusions Chronic intra-uterine opioid exposed infants and pre-school children experienced no significant impairment in neurobehavioral outcomes when compared to non-exposed peers , although in all domains there was a trend to poorer outcomes .
Background It is assumed within the accumulated literature that children born of pregnant opioid dependent mothers have impaired neurobehavioral function as a consequence of chronic intrauterine opioid use .
Profiles of Cognitive Dysfunction in Chronic Amphetamine and Heroin Abusers
Groups of subjects whose primary drug of abuse was amphetamine or heroin were compared , together with age- and IQ-matched control subjects . The study consisted of a neuropsychological test battery which included both conventional tests and also computerised tests of recognition memory , spatial working memory , planning , sequence generation , visual discrimination learning , and attentional set-shifting . Many of these tests have previously been shown to be sensitive to cortical damage ( including selective lesions of the temporal or frontal lobes ) and to cognitive deficits in dementia , basal ganglia disease , and neuropsychiatric disorder . Qualitative differences , as well as some commonalities , were found in the profile of cognitive impairment between the two groups . The chronic amphetamine abusers were significantly impaired in performance on the extra-dimensional shift task ( a core component of the Wisconsin Card Sort Test ) whereas in contrast , the heroin abusers were impaired in learning the normally easier intra-dimensional shift component . Both groups were impaired in some of tests of spatial working memory . However , the amphetamine group , unlike the heroin group , were not deficient in an index of strategic performance on this test . The heroin group failed to show significant improvement between two blocks of a sequence generation task after training and additionally exhibited more perseverative behavior on this task . The two groups were profoundly , but equivalently impaired on a test of pattern recognition memory sensitive to temporal lobe dysfunction . These results indicate that chronic drug use may lead to distinct patterns of cognitive impairment that may be associated with dysfunction of different components of cortico-striatal circuitry
This meta- analysis showed no significant impairments , at a non-conservative significance level of p < 0.05 , for cognitive , psychomotor or observed behavioural outcomes for chronic intra-uterine exposed infants and pre-school children compared to non-exposed infants and children .
However , all domains suggested a trend to poor outcomes in infants/children of opioid using mothers .
Conclusions Chronic intra-uterine opioid exposed infants and pre-school children experienced no significant impairment in neurobehavioral outcomes when compared to non-exposed peers , although in all domains there was a trend to poorer outcomes .
Background It is assumed within the accumulated literature that children born of pregnant opioid dependent mothers have impaired neurobehavioral function as a consequence of chronic intrauterine opioid use .