BACKGROUND/AIMS Viral infection during pregnancy is known to affect the fetal brain. The toll-like receptor (TLR)-3 is a pattern recognition receptor activated by viruses known to elicit adverse fetal neurological outcomes. The P-glycoprotein (P-gp) efflux transporter protects the developing fetus by limiting the transfer of substrates across both the placenta and the fetal blood-brain barrier ...

UNLABELLED Cocaine abuse during pregnancy has been associated with numerous adverse perinatal outcomes. AIMS The present study was to determine whether prenatal cocaine exposure induced apoptosis and the possible role of Bcl-2 family genes in the programming cell death in fetal rat brain. MAIN METHODS Pregnant rats were treated with cocaine subcutaneously (30 & 60 mg/kg/day) from day 15 to ...

Ischemic reperfusion (IR) during the perinatal period is a known causative factor of fetal brain damage. So far, both morphologic and histologic evidence has shown that fetal brain damage can be observed only several hours to days after an IR insult has occurred. Therefore, to prevent fetal brain damage under these circumstances, a more detailed understanding of the underlying molecular mechani...

Recent clinical studies indicate that thyroid hormone plays essential roles in fetal brain development. However, the mechanism by which thyroid hormone affects fetal brain development is poorly studied. We recently identified several genes expressed in the fetal cortex whose abundance is affected by thyroid hormone of maternal origin. However, it is unclear whether these genes are directly regu...

Aims: To precisely diagnose Fetal Heart Rate (FHR) with actocardiogram (ACG), which is the simultaneous record of FHR and movement signal spikes. Method: Low frequency ultrasonic Doppler signal of fetal movement and high frequency Doppler of fetal heart beat were detected with single ultrasonic probe, and separated into two groups by a new electric circuit. FHR was recorded by autocorrelation h...

Cigarette smoking during pregnancy is associated with a variety of adverse fetal outcomes. Nicotine is a likely contributor to these adverse effects, with fetal brain as one target organ. Vaccination of adult male rats against nicotine has been shown to reduce nicotine distribution to the brain. The current study examined whether vaccination of female rats before pregnancy would reduce the dist...