Prenatal tobacco exposure and self-regulation in early childhood: Implications for developmental psychopathology

Abstract

Prenatal tobacco exposure (PTE) has a well-documented association with disruptive behavior in childhood, but the neurocognitive effects of exposure that underlie this link are not sufficiently understood. The present study was designed to address this gap, through longitudinal follow-up in early childhood of a prospectively enrolled cohort with well-characterized prenatal exposure. Three-year-old children (n = 151) were assessed using a developmentally sensitive battery capturing both cognitive and motivational aspects of self-regulation. PTE was related to motivational self-regulation, where children had to delay approach to attractive rewards, but not cognitive self-regulation, where children had to hold information in mind and inhibit prepotent motor responses. Furthermore, PTE predicted motivational self-regulation more strongly in boys than in girls, and when propensity scores were covaried to control for confounding risk factors, the effect of PTE on motivational self-regulation was significant only in boys. These findings suggest that PTE's impact on neurodevelopment may be greater in boys than in girls, perhaps reflecting vulnerability in neural circuits that subserve reward sensitivity and emotion regulation, and may also help to explain why PTE is more consistently related to disruptive behavior disorders than attention problems.

Separating Family-Level and Direct Exposure Effects of Smoking During Pregnancy on Offspring Externalizing Symptoms: Bridging the Behavior Genetic and Behavior Teratologic Divide

“…Mothers were initially recruited during pregnancy for the Midwest Infant Development Study (MIDS), which followed women from the prenatal period until their infant was 4 weeks of age (N = 369) (for detailed description see, Espy et al 2011; Wiebe et al, 2015). Women were recruited over a 4.5 year period using study fliers distributed to all obstetric clinics in a rural area in Southern Illinois and a mid-sized city in Nebraska.…”

Smoking in pregnancy, adolescent mental health and cognitive performance in young adult offspring: results from a matched sample within a Finnish cohort

“…Stronger associations in males between PEMCS and language and intelligence skills (adulthood) and conduct problems (adolescence) may be one manifestation of a more fundamental neural process that has yet to be identified. One potential mechanism is reward sensitivity and emotion regulation, which have been shown to be more vulnerable to the effects of PEMCS in boys than in girls [30]. …”

“…The deficits in reward sensitivity and emotion regulation discussed above [30] may play a role. On a related vein, poorer learning could arise from difficulties in performance of “hot” executive function tasks during childhood, difficulties that have been associated with PEMCS and externalizing behaviors [64].…”

“…From a research perspective, the results of this study add to findings suggesting the need for more nuanced analysis of the long-term effects of smoking, particularly in the area of cognition. Further analysis of potential mediating factors during development that may affect adult cognition, such as reward sensitivity and emotional regulation [30] or difficulties with “hot” cognition tasks [27], could provide targets to improve adult outcomes. Finally, these results highlight the need for further study on factors affecting cognition in those at risk for psychosis, including replication of these methods in a sample including individuals who progressed to develop significant mental illness in order to identify preventable causes of poorer functional outcomes in this population.…”

“…Huijbregts et al found that children with PEMCS showed poorer inhibitory control in a more frustrating task (but not in a regular task), while also showing higher conduct problems and hyperactivity-inattention scores [27]. Difficulties with self-regulation appear to be more pronounced in boys than in girls [30]. …”