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Maternal smoking during pregnancy (MS) has long-lasting neurobehavioural effects on the offspring. Many MS-associated psychiatric disorders begin or change symptomatology during adolescence, a period of continuous development of the central nervous system. However, the underlying molecular mechanisms are largely unknown. Given that cell adhesion molecules (CAMs) modulate various neurotransmitter systems and are associated with many psychiatric disorders, we hypothesize that CAMs are altered by prenatal treatment of nicotine, the major psychoactive component in tobacco, in adolescent brains. Pregnant Sprague–Dawley rats were treated with nicotine (3 mg/kg.d) or saline via osmotic mini-pumps from gestational days 4 to 18. Female offspring at postnatal day 35 were sacrificed, and several limbic brain regions (the caudate putamen, nucleus accumbens, prefrontal cortex, and amygdala …