Attentional Response at 8 Weeks in Prenatally Drug

COLES. C.D, K.A. BARD, K.A.PLATZMAN, AND M.E.LYNCH. Attentional response at 8 weeks in prenatally drug-exposed and preterm infants. NEUROTOXICOL TERATOL. To evaluate the effect of prenatal/polydrug exposure on infant attention, 105 8-week-old, African-American infants were presented a series of stimuli and heart rate (HR) recorded. Infants were identified postnatally based on mothers’ substance use. Four groups were tested: 1) preterm drugexposed infants (n=24); 2) full term, drug-exposed (n=32); 3) preterm nonexposed (n=22); 4) full term, nonexposed (n=26). Preterm infants’ ages were corrected. Infants’ baseline HRs were recorded and then stimuli presented in the following order: auditory (rattle), visual (red ring) and social (examiner’s face and voice). There were no HR differences at baseline or in auditory or visual conditions. However, significant differences (F(2,103)=6.54, p<.01) were seen in response to social stimuli. Drug-exposed infants showed an acceleratory HR indicating distress or arousal and control infants showed an deceleratory response indicating focused attention. Hierarchical regression indicated cocaine, but not other drug, use (R2=.034, p<.05) and instability in parenting (R2=.137, p<.001) accounted for the observed differences.