Researchers at San Diego State University say that damage to white matter in the brain caused by alcohol use during pregnancy could explain the cognitive and behavioral problems associated with fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs), HealthDay News reported Dec. 19.

Researcher Susanna Fryer and colleagues said that women who drink while pregnant risk damaging the white matter in their unborn child's frontal and occipital lobes, parts of the brain involved in control of cognition and visual processing. White matter is comprised of nerve bundles that transfer information between brain regions.

The study compared the white matter of children ages 8-18 who were born to women who drank heavily during pregnancy to that of children whose mothers did not drink.

"The brains of individuals with FASDs showed evidence of altered nerve fiber integrity at a microstructural level, even though total brain size was statistically equivalent between alcohol-exposed and comparison participants," Fryer said.

"Also, within the alcohol-exposed group, we generally found that white-matter microstructure did not differ based on whether youth met criteria for a diagnosis of fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS)," she said. "In other words, similar brain alterations and behavioral problems can occur because of prenatal alcohol exposure, with or without the facial features and physical growth insufficiency required to diagnose FAS."

The study was published in the March 2009 issue of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.