Effect of Maternal Age on Offspring Growth and Craniofacial Development After Early Prenatal Alcohol Exposure in a Mouse Model
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) can result in fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD), defined as a continuum of developmental defects including growth restriction, cognitive‐behavioral deficits, and craniofacial anomalies. Despite the known consequences of PAE, there is great variation in craniofacial and behavioral outcomes of affected children even when considering timing and quantity of exposure; phenotypic variation which could arise from maternal differences. In the present study, we asked: Does maternal age influence the nature and extent of growth restriction and craniofacial defects of PAE in offspring? To address this question, we used a C57BL/6 mouse model, as it enables precise control of dosing, gestational timing and maternal age. Dams were divided into four groups: 1. ethanol‐treated young dams (6–10 weeks); 2. control young dams; 3. ethanol‐treated old dams (6–7 months); and 4. control old dams. All dams were injected with either ethanol (treatment groups) or vehicle solution (control groups) on gestational day 7.5. Offspring growth restriction was analyzed by measures of body mass, liver mass, and body‐to‐liver mass ratio at birth. Micro‐CT scans of newborn soft tissue and skeletal craniofacial features underwent 3D analyses of shape and size to compare craniofacial phenotypes among treatment groups. Initial results of young ethanol‐treated and control groups demonstrated that ethanol‐treated offspring were born prematurely and showed significant growth restriction. Both soft tissue and skeletal craniofacial features were altered in the ethanol‐treated group, consistent with the FASD phenotype. Surprisingly, craniofacial shape of ethanol‐treated offspring was less variable than controls. Data collection for the old dam groups is ongoing, and we predict that offspring of old dams will have more severe growth and phenotypic consequences from PAE, exhibiting greater phenotypic variation compared to offspring of young dams. As many women are delaying childbirth, there is an increasing need to carryout preclinical studies with appropriate experimental controls to better understand the relative risk of PAE and maternal age, and ultimately contribute to public health policy for pregnant women. Support or Funding Information Funded by Children’s Health Research Institute, Internal Research Grant Fund to KEW “The Effects of Moderate Prenatal Alcohol Exposure on Craniofacial Morphology and Development” R5211A04
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".