MedicalResearch.com Interview with: Pradeep G. Bhide, Ph.D. Professor | Jim and Betty Ann Rodgers Eminent Scholar Chair of Developmental Neuroscience Director, Center for Brain Repair Department of Biomedical Sciences Florida State University College of Medicine Tallahassee, FL MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings? Response: Until now, much attention had been focused on the adverse effects of cigarette smoking by pregnant women on their children’s cognitive development. Some reports suggested that cigarette smoking during pregnancy can produce harmful effects in multiple generations of descendants (transgenerational effects). Not much had been known about the effects of paternal smoking, although more men smoke cigarettes than women. Our study shows that paternal nicotine exposure can be deleterious to the offspring in multiple generations. That is, cognitive function may be compromised in children and grandchildren of a nicotine-exposed male. Of course, our study was done in mice and not men.  However, since studies done in mice on maternal nicotine exposure produced results consistent with studies done in women and children, we believe that he findings from our present study likely can be extrapolated to humans.  (more…)