Alcohol exposure during prenatal development is a major cause of preventable birth defects and mental disorders (Bower, Szajer, Mattson, Riley and Murphy, 2013; Nuñez, Roussotte, and Sowell, 2011; Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS), the most severe form of PAE, affects two to seven individuals in 1000 in the United States (May et al., as cited in Simmons , Thomas, Levy & Riley, 2010).The term fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) describes an individual with varying levels of PAE 100 suffer from some form of FASD. With such a high prevalence in the population, numerous studies have been conducted showing the harmful effects of PAE. The purpose of this article is to review the literature on brain development and structural changes in response to prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE). PAE has several characteristic symptoms including cerebral and facial dysmorphology. Disruption of normal brain development due to prenatal alcohol exposure is linked to reduction in size and/or damage in almost all parts of the brain (Lebel, Roussotte, & Sowell, 2011), decreased rate of generation of neurons, delayed and/or atypical migration of neurons during brain development and decreased myelin and axon development (Guerri & Renau-Piqueras, 1997). PAE has also been linked to impaired motor coordination (Xie, Yang, Chappell, Li, & Waters, 2009), reduced IQ and attention span, increased tendency toward hyperactivity, and impaired verbal learning and language skills (Yang et al. al., 2011). Furthermore, individuals exposed to high levels of alcohol in the womb exhibit growth retardation (Lebel et al., 2011) and typical prenatal facial alcohol exposure. Cerebral Cortex, 18(1), 136-144. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhm039Tajuddin, NF, Orrico, L. A., Eriksen, J. L., & Druse, M. J. (2003). Effects of ethanol and ipsapirone on the development of midline raphe glial cells and astrocytes. Alcohol, 29, 157-164. doi:10.1016/S0741-8239(03)00024-7Xie, N., Yang, Q., Chappell, T.D., Li, C.-X., & Waters, R.S. (2010). Prenatal alcohol exposure reduces the size of forelimb representation in the motor cortex in the rat: an intracortical microstimulation (ICMS) mapping study. Alcohol, 44, 185-194. doi:10.1016/j.alcohol.2009.10.014Yang, Y., Roussotte, F., Kan, E., Sulik, K.K., Mattson, S.N., Riley, E.P., . . . Sowell, emergency room (2011). Anomalous alteration of cortical thickness in fetal alcohol spectrum disorders and their relationship to facial dysmorphology. Cerebral Cortex, 22, 1170-1179. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhr193