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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2010 May 1.
Published in final edited form as: Pharmacol Ther. 2009 Mar 5;122(2):125–139. doi: 10.1016/j.pharmthera.2009.02.003

Figure 2.

Figure 2

Brain regions impacted by nicotine exposure during the early postnatal period. In the early postnatal period, the cortex, hippocampus, and cerebellum are all in sensitive periods of development and are actively regulated by transient populations of nAChRs. During this time exogenous nicotine may disrupt normal thalmocortical and hippocampal development. Offspring of children whose mothers smoked during pregnancy are at increased risk for cognitive and auditory processing deficits, which are likely related to cortical dysfunction induced by early nicotine exposure (see text for detail).