Abstract #0248

Longitudinal Structural Brain Changes in Children & Adolescents with Prenatal Alcohol Exposure

Catherine Lebel¹, Eric Kan², Sarah Mattson³, Edward Riley³, Kenneth Jones⁴, Colleen Adnams⁵, Philip May⁶, Mary O'Connor⁷, Katherine Narr¹, Elizabeth Sowell,¹²

¹Neurology, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States; ²Children's Hospital Los Angeles, CA, United States; ³Psychology, San Diego State University, CA, United States; ⁴Pediatrics, University of California, San Diego, CA, United States; ⁵Psychiatry and Mental Health, University of Cape Town, South Africa; ⁶Nutrition, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, United States; ⁷Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Children and youth prenatally exposed to alcohol demonstrate structural brain abnormalities compared to controls, but it is not clear whether these abnormalities change over time. In the first longitudinal study of cortical development, we demonstrate several brain regions with different developmental trajectories between alcohol-exposed subjects and controls, mainly in the parietal lobe. In general, subjects with prenatal alcohol exposure demonstrated less overall volume change, suggesting decreased cortical plasticity compared to controls. These results are important to consider in studies of group differences, which may change over time, and also are relevant for treatment and interventions in this population.