18-08-2017
Alcohol is definitely forbidden during pregnancy - abstinence is recommended for pregnant women on the grounds that alcohol consumption puts the baby at risk of foetal alcohol syndrome. There are numerous problems associated with this syndrome, which is why scientists are still investigating whether the toxic effects of alcohol on the foetus can be reduced in some way. One recent study shows that the consequences of maternal alcohol consumption can theoretically be reduced by... long known and available drugs.
The exact mechanism by which alcohol damages fetal brains and leads to fetal alcohol syndrome (ALPS) has not yet been understood. One potential available explanation for this is that alcohol consumption may be linked to damage to the hippocampus, a centre that is responsible for memory and learning processes. There is also another theory according to which children of drinking mothers suffer from deficiencies in thyroid hormones, which are also linked to the development of the central nervous system.
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Scientists at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, with these hypotheses in mind, decided to conduct a specific study on rats. Namely, they administered preparations of thyroxine, a thyroid hormone, to some of the rodents that had been exposed to alcohol before birth. The researchers then placed both the treated and untreated groups in a room where the rats had been treated with a mild electrical stimulus in the past. It turned out that the thyroxine-treated rats froze in such a room, while the untreated rats froze for a shorter period of time - this may suggest that the treated rats had a better functioning nervous system and somehow remembered that they had experienced an unpleasant event in the past in a particular place.
Interestingly, it was not only thyroxine that had the effect described above - similar results were obtained by administering the anti-diabetic metformin to the animals. Under the influence of alcohol, the production of one of the enzymes of the hippocampus, which is involved in controlling genes related to memory and learning, is reduced. Next to the drugs - both thyroxine and metformin - normalised the levels of this enzyme.
Will the scientists' findings improve the condition of children with foetal alcohol syndrome? This cannot be determined at the moment - it would be necessary to conduct studies not only on rodents, but also on humans. Theoretically, this would be possible - the drug thyroxine can, after all, be administered to pregnant women.
