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Prenatal Exposure To Methamphetamine Causes Vascular Dysfunction In Adult Male Offspring, Hasitha Chavva, Adam M. Belcher, Daniel A. Brazeau, Boyd Rorabaugh

Pharmaceutical Science and Research

Methamphetamine use during pregnancy can have negative consequences on the offspring. However, most studies investigating the impact of prenatal exposure to methamphetamine have focused on behavioral and neurological outcomes. Relatively little is known regarding the impact of prenatal methamphetamine on the adult cardiovascular system. This study investigated the impact of chronic fetal exposure to methamphetamine on vascular function in adult offspring. Pregnant female rats received daily saline or methamphetamine (5 mg/kg) injections starting on gestational day 1 and continuing until the pups were born. Vascular function was assessed in 5 month old offspring. Prenatal methamphetamine significantly decreased both the efficacy …

Methamphetamine-Induced Changes In Myocardial Gene Transcription Are Sex-Dependent, Hasitha Chavva, Daniel A. Brazeau, James Denvir, Donald A. Primerano, Jun Fan, Sarah L. Seeley, Boyd R. Rorabaugh

Pharmaceutical Science and Research

Background: Prior work demonstrated that female rats (but not their male littermates) exposed to methamphetamine become hypersensitive to myocardial ischemic injury. Importantly, this sex-dependent effect persists following 30 days of subsequent abstinence from the drug, suggesting that it may be mediated by long term changes in gene expression that are not rapidly reversed following discontinuation of methamphetamine use. The goal of the present study was to determine whether methamphetamine induces sex-dependent changes in myocardial gene expression and whether these changes persist following subsequent abstinence from methamphetamine.

Results: Methamphetamine induced changes in the myocardial transcriptome were significantly greater in female hearts …