Natalia M Kleinhans
University of Washington, WA·Neuroscience
More people now use cannabis during pregnancy, as legalization spreads, fewer people see it as harmful, and some use it to ease nausea. Earlier studies of prenatal exposure mostly included people who also used tobacco, alcohol or other drugs.
- Fields
Neuroscience
Medicine & Clinical Research
Psychology
- Topics
prenatal cannabis exposure
marijuana
pregnancy
- Grants
- 2 known grants, through Nov 2030
What they work on
- Characterize brain differences in newborns exposed to cannabis in the womb, using functional MRI, diffusion tensor imaging and structural MRI during natural sleep at 2 to 4 weeks, compared with matched unexposed infants.
- Relate prospectively measured prenatal cannabis use, tracked with weekly reports validated by labels and urine tests, to newborn behavior exams and neuropsychological outcomes at 6 and 18 months.
- Track brain growth trajectories over the first 18 months with repeated MRI, including myelin imaging of the insulation around nerve fibers, to detect cannabis-related changes in development.
- Test whether prenatal cannabis exposure affects male and female infants differently in brain imaging and behavioral outcomes.
More about the research
Those studies also involved cannabis about ten times less potent than today's. Cannabis crosses the placenta and binds to the brain's cannabinoid receptors. It could therefore alter brain development, but its specific risks remain unclear. The lab's two linked grants follow infants from pregnancy through 18 months to clarify these risks.
Why it matters
Clear evidence on how modern cannabis used during pregnancy affects the infant brain could help pregnant people and the public make better-informed choices. Brain imaging combined with behavioral measures may also detect early signs of atypical development, the kind seen in neurodevelopmental disorders, in exposed infants.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Panayotis Thanos
University at Buffalo, NY·Neuroscience
Compare body weight and weight-related behaviors across children with no, tobacco-only, or light or heavy tobacco-plus-cannabis prenatal exposure, and across animals given prenatal nicotine, THC or both, to assess obesity risk.
Theodorus Van Erp
University of California-Irvine, CA·Neuroscience
Establish replicated functional and structural connectivity signatures of schizophrenia and of schizotypy (subclinical psychosis-like traits in healthy people) by harmonizing resting-state fMRI and diffusion tensor imaging across dozens of ENIGMA consortium cohorts.
Vishnu Suppiramaniam
Kennesaw State University, GA·Neuroscience
Investigate the molecular mechanisms behind memory and synaptic plasticity deficits after prenatal cannabinoid exposure, using behavioral tests and hippocampal measurements of long-term potentiation and long-term depression in exposed animals.
The school
University of Washington: 81 labs on PI Pages, $1.7B a year on research, 694 research doctorates a year.
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