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We tend to think of a fetus's brain as a construction site guided by a blueprint imprinted in the genes. But even before birth, other things are happening. The fetus moves, responds to muffled sounds, receives stimuli and, crucially, its own nervous system is already generating activity.

A study supervised by Tomáš Paus, a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Université de Montréal and a researcher at Sainte-Justine hospital, sheds new light on this prenatal activity. One important finding is that signals spontaneously generated by the retina may help shape the primary visual cortex, the brain region that processes visual information.

The story begins in Quebec's Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region more than two decades ago, when Paus and his UdeM colleague Dr. Zdenka Pausova launched a large cohort study to investigate how adversities experienced in the womb affect brain development and cardiometabolic health.

More than 1,000 adolescents ages 12 to 18 were recruited and assessed over the years, with some followed into adulthood. One of the factors studied was smoking during pregnancy, a relatively common prenatal exposure. Cigarette smoke has multiple effects. It can reduce oxygen and nutrient supply to the fetus, contributing to lower birth weight. It also contains an array of chemicals, including nicotine, which binds to brain receptors that normally respond to acetylcholine, a key neurotransmitter.

In the current study, the team focused specifically on the primary visual cortex, or area V1.

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