The primary focus of this volume is on the impact of
alcohol on brain development. It is a perfect example of how
research on both animals and humans can interact to produce
very important findings. In the case of prenatal alcohol exposure,
dialogue between animal and human researchers has proved to
be very profitable for both lines of research. Initial observations
by human researchers identified a syndrome of facial stigmata,
physical malformations, and early behavioral disturbances that
was related to maternal alcohol abuse during pregnancy. They
gave this syndrome the name Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.
However, human researchers were unable to state unequivocally
that prenatal alcohol exposure was teratogenic to the fetus.
Thus, they turned to animal researchers who were able to model
Fetal Alcohol Syndrome in a variety of animals and to confirm
the teratogenicity of alcohol on the developing fetus. The quarter
century of studies of the damage caused by prenatal alcohol
exposure is replete with such interactions between these two
groups of researchers. Without the input and pioneering studies
of animal researchers on the effects of prenatal alcohol exposure,
human researchers would have much less understanding of the
damage caused by alcohol exposure in utero or insights into
possible treatment or remediation strategies for those damaged
by alcohol exposure.