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Developmental Nicotine Exposure Alters Upper Airway Protective Reflexes In Neonates
Author(s) -
Clarke Jordan,
Cross Seres,
Fregosi Ralph
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.2018.32.1_supplement.lb401
Subject(s) - nicotine , medicine , anesthesia , reflex , in utero , occlusion , physiology , pregnancy , fetus , biology , genetics
Although smoking while pregnant is associated with developmental abnormalities in newborns, at least 20% of women smoke during pregnancy. In addition, many women that quit smoking in pregnancy are prescribed nicotine replacement therapies, despite limited knowledge of its developmental consequences on the fetus. Human infants that were smoke‐exposed in utero tend to have more obstructive apneas during sleep than unexposed infants. Here we report the results of experiments designed to examine the impact of developmental nicotine exposure (DNE) on motor output to upper airway muscles in neonatal rats. Pregnant dams were exposed to nicotine (6 mg/kg of nicotine tartrate daily) with an osmotic mini‐pump implanted subdermally on the 5 th day of gestation. Neonates (P3‐P10) were lightly anesthetized and placed in a head out body plethysmograph to measure airflow, and fine wires were inserted into the genioglossus muscle to measure the EMG. We examined ventilatory and EMG responses during and after 15‐sec nasal occlusions. The change in EMG burst amplitude in response to nasal occlusion was blunted in DNE animals compared to control, but only in animals younger than P7. DNE animals also show an increased latency period (time of first EMG burst after the onset of nasal occlusion) compared to control animals, again only in animals P7 and younger. Twelve of the 112 animals studied failed to recover following nasal occlusion, and 9 of those 12 were nicotine‐exposed. These results show that nicotine exposure in‐utero does alter upper airway protective reflexes in neonates by increasing the time it takes to respond to respiratory stress and blunting the magnitude of each effort to breathe during their response. Moreover, DNE animals were more likely to die following a nasal occlusion challenge. Support or Funding Information NIH RO1HD071302 This abstract is from the Experimental Biology 2018 Meeting. There is no full text article associated with this abstract published in The FASEB Journal .