Assessment of early-life choline and iron deficiencies on neurodevelopment in the young pig
Optimal nutrition early in life is critical to ensure proper structural and functional development of infant organ systems and efforts have increasingly focused on how nutrition influences neurodevelopment. Choline and iron are two micronutrients that are known to play pivotal roles in brain development, yet insufficient dietary intake remains a problem worldwide. The pig has emerged as an important translational model for studying neurodevelopmental outcomes influenced by pediatric nutrition. The use of magnetic resonance imaging allows for a non-invasive understanding of how nutrition affects neurodevelopmental patterns and is amendable to both pre-clinical and clinical populations. As such, the work in this dissertation used neuroimaging techniques, applied in the biomedical pig model, to elucidate the independent influences of perinatal choline deficiency and postnatal iron deficiency on neurodevelopment. Additionally, milk from choline-deficient and choline-sufficient sows was assessed to determine the influence of perinatal choline deficiency on milk composition. Herein, we report that prenatal choline deficiency greatly alters the trajectory of brain development, resulting in reductions in total brain volumes as well as alterations in microstructural development. In addition, we report that perinatal choline deficiency reduces choline metabolites and alters the fatty acid and amino acid profiles in milk. Our work also indicates that dietary iron deficiency early in life alters structural brain development, and does not appear to be completely corrected despite a period of iron repletion. The work from this dissertation is well poised to inform researchers and clinicians alike by providing insights into structural alterations in brain development that result from dietary choline and iron deficiencies.
neurodevelopment nutrition pig animal model neuroscience magnetic resonance imaging iron deficiency choline deficiency
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign