| ABSTRACT: Methamphetamine (MA) can cross the placenta in pregnant
women and cause placental abruption and developmental alterations in
offspring. Previous studies have found prenatal MA exposure effects on the
social and cognitive performance of children. Recent studies reported some
alterations in structural and functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of
prenatal MA-exposed offspring. In this study, we aimed to investigate the effect
of prenatal MA exposure on brain development using recently published
structural, metabolic, and functional MRI studies. According to the Preferred
Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA)
guidelines, we searched PubMed and SCOPUS databases for articles that
used each brain imaging modality in prenatal MA-exposed children. Seventeen
studies were included in this study. We investigated brain imaging alterations
using 17 articles with four different modalities, including structural MRI,
diffusion tensor imaging (DTI), magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS), and
functional MRI (fMRI). The participants’ age range was from infancy to 15 years. Our findings demonstrated that prenatal MA
exposure is associated with macrostructural, microstructural, metabolic, and functional deficits in both cortical and subcortical areas.
However, the most affected regions were the striatum, frontal lobe, thalamus and the limbic system, and white matter (WM) fibers
connecting these regions. The findings from our study might have valuable implications for targeted treatment of neurocognitive and
behavioral deficits in children with prenatal MA exposure. Even so, our results should be interpreted cautiously due to the
heterogeneity of the included studies in terms of study populations and methods of analysis |