Preferring the fetal brain

A team at Ohio State University has shown that an opioid antagonist readily enters a fetus' brain but has limited entry into an adult brain, raising the prospect that a peripherally selective compound could be used to prevent or reduce neonatal opioid dependence without compromising the mother.

The idea is to avoid interfering with treatment for pregnant women with opioid dependence, which usually involves managed maintenance with methadone or buprenorphine. Although effective in the mother, the managed maintenance strategy doesn't prevent opioid dependence in the infant upon birth, which results in neonatal abstinence syndrome, often leads to premature birth, and causes a range of other symptoms that require extended stays in ICUs...