As legalization of recreational cannabis progresses across the world, many people mistakenly believe that cannabis use is without significant health risks.
For this study, researchers from Icahn Mount Sinai and CUNY examined placental gene expression and early childhood behavior and physiology in a long-term study of 322 mother-child pairs who were drawn from an ongoing New York City-based study of stress in pregnancy started in 2009.
In addition, RNA sequencing of placental tissue collected at the time of birth in a subset of participants revealed that maternal cannabis use was associated with lower expression of immune-activating genes, including pro-inflammatory cytokines, which are involved in protecting against pathogens.
Our findings indicate that using it during pregnancy can have long-term impact on children,” said Yasmin Hurd, PhD, the Ward-Coleman Chair of Translational Neuroscience, Director of the Addiction Institute at Mount Sinai, and senior author of the paper.
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