Brain development
What does high-THC smoke during pregnancy do to rat offspring?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Daily high-THC Cannabis smoke from GD6–20 did not change dam weight gain or litter size, but raised male:female ratio, reduced adult open-field inner-zone exploration, and improved touchscreen discrimination, with subtle male amygdala gene changes.
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Study at a glance
- Design
- Animal / in-vitro — Pregnant Sprague Dawley rats exposed daily to combusted high-THC Cannabis smoke (GD6–20) vs room air; offspring behavior and amygdala RNA-seq
- N
- N=22 · 22 dams (smoke n=12, air n=10); offspring behavior cohorts n=40 and n=37
- Population
- Pregnant Sprague Dawley rats and their adult offspring
- Outcome
- Maternal physiology, litter sex ratio, anxiety-like and touchscreen cognition, amygdala gene expression
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What does high-THC smoke during pregnancy do to rat offspring?
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22 naive females and 12 males were used; smoke n=12 dams vs air n=10.
Sexually naive female ( n = 22) and male ( n = 12) Sprague Dawley rats (70 d old; Charles River) were pair housed by sex in a temperature-controlled (21°C) and light-controlled (12 h light/dark cycle) vivarium managed by the Lab Animal Safety Unit at the University of Saskatchewan.
Smoke group received 200 mg combusted Cannabis daily (n=12 vs n=10 air).
Pregnant rats were split into the following two groups: (1) 200 mg of Cannabis combusted and delivered as smoke ( n = 12); and (2) room air control ( n = 10).
Key findings
Dams had lower body temperature and more fecal boli after smoke; maternal weight gain, food intake, gestation length, and litter weight were unchanged. Cannabis litters had a higher male-to-female ratio. Adult offspring explored the open-field inner zone less, were unaltered on EPM/social tests, outperformed controls on visual PD/RL, and males showed subtle amygdala transcript shifts.
Methodology
Exposed 12 pregnant rats to 200 mg combusted Mohawk flower (~19.51% THC) for 15 min/day GD6–20 versus 10 room-air dams, then tested adult offspring in open field, EPM, social interaction, pairwise discrimination/reversal, and amygdala RNA-seq.
Limitations
Rat smoke exposure is not human prenatal cannabis use; there was no CBD-matched or pair-fed human cohort, and improved touchscreen scores do not equal better real-world cognition.
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