The use of cocaine, an illicit drug, has increased dramatically among Americans, and users now include young adults of child-bearing age and pregnant women. Clinical reports have indicated that a pregnant woman and her fetus are subjected to a host of potential problems due to cocaine use including nutritional deficits, weight loss, fetal intolerance to labor, decreased utero-placental blood flow, abruptio placentae and congenital anomalies. Few studies have examined under controlled laboratory conditions the consequences of cocaine use during pregnancy and, therefore, the effects of cocaine on maternal, fetal and neonatal behavior and development are poorly understood. We propose to study in rhesus monkeys the effects of continuous cocaine infusion throughout gestation and during specific trimesters of gestation in order to characterize the effects on the pregnant female, the developing fetus and the resulting offspring. Experiment I will study three doses of cocaine infused continuously throughout gestation to determine differences in effects as a function of dose and to determine the appropriate dose to use in subsequent experiment. Experiment II will study the effects of continuously infusing a single dose of cocaine during different trimesters of pregnancy in the rhesus monkey. In both experiments, cocaine will be infused via chronically-implanted osmotic pumps, and cocaine in maternal blood and in amniotic fluid will be monitored. In control monkeys, saline will be substituted for cocaine solution and infused. In utero growth and activity of the fetus will be measured with ultrasound. Neonates will be tested an studied until 24 months of age using selected visual, psychomotor and developmental tasks to characterize differences in behavioral development and physical growth. Adult and infant monkeys will be monitored for evidence of tolerance or sensitization to the continuous presence of cocaine, an both will be studied for evidence of withdrawal signs following birth of the infant and the subsequent removal of the infusion pump from the adult. The research will be conducted by an interdisciplinary team of scientists to characterize a nonhuman primate model of chronic in utero cocaine exposure in order to understand better the risks of cocaine use during pregnancy in humans.
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