Maternal alcohol exposure before and during pregnancy: effect on development of neurons and glial cells in culture.

The effect of maternal alcohol exposure on nerve cell development was investigated in neurons and glial cells cultured from foetal rat brain. Neurons were grown for one week from two-week-old cortical brain cells and glial cells were cultured for four weeks from newborn cortical brain cells. Two types of maternal alcohol treatment were performed; either before and during pregnancy or only until the beginning of pregnancy. In both situations, we found a delayed nerve cell maturation assessed by microscopic observations and determination of enzymatic markers of nerve cell development (non-neuronal and neuron-specific enolase for the neuronal cells, non-neuronal enolase and glutamine synthetase for the glial cells). The results confirmed our previous in vivo experiments pointing out long-lasting effects of maternal alcohol exposure in the offspring.