Abstract Draft

Approximately half of the world’s children are exposed to second-hand smoke. Preliminary studies have been conducted that shows the link between Attention Deficient Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and tobacco smoke. Tobacco smoke is a substance that contains thousands of harmful chemicals and there is evidence to believe that maternal smoking negatively affects neurobehavioral development in offspring. Some of these neurobehavioral effects include the hyperactivity and declined cognition that is often associated with ADHD. The most active compound in tobacco smoke is Nicotine which, when used on rat models, cause significant cognitive impairment properties. In addition to Nicotine, benzo-a-pyrene (BaP) is also present in tobacco smoke and it also has been studied to have negative neurobehavioral effects in rat models. In this study, female rats were either given nicotine, Bap, both, or neither and the offspring of those rats then underwent neurobehavioral tests. The results of this study showed that the male rats who were exposed to BaP had a significant locomotor activity while the female rats did not during adolescence. Male offspring who were exposed to both nicotine and BaP (in particular) had significant and long lasting neurobehavioral defects.