The 13th World Conference on Tobacco OR Health

Objective: Studies have reported associations between maternal smoking during pregnancy and disruptive behavior in children. This has been seen frequently for conduct disorder and aspects of delinquency. Objectives for this symposium are to: (1) delineate the nature of these relationships, including elucidation of the developmental pattern of behavior associated with exposure, and examination of gender differences, (2) explore hypotheses about, and approaches to the study of mechanisms underlying these associations, and (3) examine implications of these associations, and hypotheses regarding underlying mechanisms, for clinical interventions with women and children.

Methods: The symposium will have an interdisciplinary, translational approach to these objectives, involving discussion of human and animal research that may provide increased understanding of prenatal exposure-behavioral outcome associations, and discussion of transfer of knowledge from research to clinical practice. Attendees will be encouraged to offer comment and perspective for all symposium objectives.

Results: Dr. Lauren Wakschlag will discuss prenatal exposure and human developmental outcomes, including contextual factors (such as parenting) that may interact with possible prenatal exposure effects. Dr. Daniel Pine will focus on human brain development considerations in understanding these relationships. Dr. Charles Breese will provide the perspective from research on long-term developmental and behavioral teratogenicity of prenatal nicotine exposure in an animal model. Dr. James Pauly will discuss gender-dependent influences of nicotine on brain and behavioral development based on animal research. Clinical implications will be addressed in the presentations and during the open discussion time.