Meredith Schulson, Anthony Liu, Tracey Björkman, Ann Quinton, Kristy P. Mann, Ron Benzie, Michael Peek, Ralph Nanan
Abstract
Methadone maintenance therapy is the standard of care in many countries for opioid-dependent women who become pregnant. Despite recent evidence showing significant neurodevelopmental changes in children and adults exposed to both licit and illicit substances in utero, data on the effects of opioids in particular remains scarce. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of opiate use, in particular methadone, on various fetal cortical and biometric growth parameters in utero using ultrasound measurements done at 18-22 weeks gestation. Head circumference (HC), bi-parietal diameter, lateral ventricle diameter, transcerebellar diameter, thalamic diameter, cisterna magna diameter, and femur length were compared between fetuses born to methadone-maintained mothers and non-substance using controls. A significantly larger thalamic diameter (0.05 cm, p = 0.01) was observed in the opiate-exposed group. Thalamic diameter/HC ratio was also significantly raised (0.03 mm, p = 0.01). We hypothesize here that the increase in thalamic diameter in opiate-exposed fetuses could potentially be explained by regional differences in opioid and serotonin receptor densities, an alteration in monoamine neurotransmitter systems, and an enhancement of the normal growth increase that occurs in the thalamus during mid-gestation.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 17 January 2015.
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#16,046,765
of 25,371,288 outputs
Outputs from Frontiers in Surgery
#544
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Outputs of similar age
#128,414
of 239,672 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Frontiers in Surgery
#3
of 14 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 25,371,288 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 34th percentile – i.e., 34% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,950 research outputs from this source. They receive a mean Attention Score of 2.2. This one has done well, scoring higher than 83% of its peers.
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We're also able to compare this research output to 14 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 71% of its contemporaries.
