HUFFMAN LAB

Through our early work emerged what has become our primary research focus. In 2010 we began working on a murine model of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders, or FASD. Since then we have published several papers that elucidate the changes in brain and behavior that occur in the offspring as a result of maternal consumption of ethanol, or alcohol, during pregnancy. We discovered that prenatal ethanol exposure, PrEE, leads to alteration in gene expression patterning in early developing neocortex as well as an alteration in the intraneocortical network of connections. These biological phenotypes correlate with behavioral phenotypes in the affected PrEE mice. Our behavioral model data are consistent with what has been observed in children with FASD. Recently, we found these effects are not only present in babies directly exposed to ethanol during gestation. There is transgenerational inheritance, via epigenetic mechanisms, of the PrEE biological and behavioral effects... Currently, we are..