Methadone is often used for medication-assisted treatment of heroin addiction during pregnancy. Children with prenatal exposure to the drug are at increased risk of neurodevelopmental and behavioural impairment. We did fixel-based analysis with a group of 20 term born infants whose mothers had been prescribed methadone during pregnancy for the treatment of heroin addiction and a control group of 20 control infants. There was significant widespread reduction across the WM in fiber-bundle cross-section and fiber density and cross-section in the exposed group, this suggests that affected fibre bundles are less developed, similar to WM structures in preterm born babies.
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