Patterns of Fetal and Infant Growth and Brain Morphology at Age 10 Years

Background: During aging and in age-associated disorders, such as Alzheimer's Disease (AD), learning abilities decline. Probably, disturbances in signal transduction in brain cells underlie the cognitive decline. The phosphorylation/dephosphorylation imbalance occurring in degenerating neurons was recently related to abnormal activity of one or more signal transduction pathways. AD is known to be associated with altered neuronal Ca2+ homeostasis, as Ca2+ accumulates in affected neurons leading to functional impairment. It is becoming more and more evident the involvement of signal transduction pathways acting upon Ca2+ metabolism and phosphorylation regulation of proteins. A growing interest raised around the role of signal transduction systems in a number of human diseases including neurodegenerative diseases, with special regard to the systems related to the phosphoinositide (PI) pathway and AD. The PI signal transduction pathway plays a crucial role, being involved in a variety of cell functions, such as hormone secretion, neurotransmitter signal transduction, cell growth, membrane trafficking, ion channel activity, cytoskeleton regulation, cell cycle control, apoptosis, cell and tissue polarity, and contributes to regulate the Ca2+ levels in the nervous tissue. Conclusion: A number of observations indicated that PI-specific phospholipase C (PLC) enzymes might be involved in the alteration of neurotransmission. To understand the role and the timing of action of the signalling pathways recruited during the brain morphology changes during the AD progression might help to elucidate the aetiopathogenesis of the disease, paving the way to prognosis refinement and/or novel molecular therapeutic strategies.

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Age and sex effects on brain morphology

Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry ◽

10.1016/s0278-5846(97)00160-7 ◽

1997 ◽

Vol 21 (8) ◽

pp. 1231-1237 ◽

Cited By ~ 73

Author(s):

Theodore J. Passe ◽

Pradeep Rajagopalan ◽

Larry A. Tupler ◽

Christopher E. Byrum ◽

James R. Macfall ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Brain Morphology ◽

Sex Effects ◽

Age And Sex

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Different Blood Metabolomics Profiles in Infants Consuming a Meat- or Dairy-Based Complementary Diet

Nutrients ◽

10.3390/nu13020388 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (2) ◽

pp. 388

Author(s):

Minghua Tang ◽

Nicholas E. Weaver ◽

Lillian M. Berman ◽

Laura D. Brown ◽

Audrey E. Hendricks ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Amino Acids ◽

Dietary Intervention ◽

Principal Component ◽

Essential Amino Acids ◽

Infant Growth ◽

Serum Samples ◽

Z Scores ◽

Protein Rich ◽

Over Time ◽

Complementary Diet

Background: Research is limited in evaluating the mechanisms responsible for infant growth in response to different protein-rich foods; Methods: Targeted and untargeted metabolomics analysis were conducted on serum samples collected from an infant controlled-feeding trial that participants consumed a meat- vs. dairy-based complementary diet from 5 to 12 months of age, and followed up at 24 months. Results: Isoleucine, valine, phenylalanine increased and threonine decreased over time among all participants; Although none of the individual essential amino acids had a significant impact on changes in growth Z scores from 5 to 12 months, principal component heavily weighted by BCAAs (leucine, isoleucine, valine) and phenylalanine had a positive association with changes in length-for-age Z score from 5 to 12 months. Concentrations of acylcarnitine-C4, acylcarnitine-C5 and acylcarnitine-C5:1 significantly increased over time with the dietary intervention, but none of the acylcarnitines were associated with infant growth Z scores. Quantitative trimethylamine N-oxide increased in the meat group from 5 to 12 months; Conclusions: Our findings suggest that increasing total protein intake by providing protein-rich complementary foods was associated with increased concentrations of certain essential amino acids and short-chain acyl-carnitines. The sources of protein-rich foods (e.g., meat vs. dairy) did not appear to differentially impact serum metabolites, and comprehensive mechanistic investigations are needed to identify other contributors or mediators of the diet-induced infant growth trajectories.

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Alcohol use and brain morphology in adolescence: a longitudinal study in three different cohorts

European Journal of Neuroscience ◽

10.1111/ejn.15411 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Hanan El Marroun ◽

Eduard T. Klapwijk ◽

Martijn Koevoets ◽

Rachel M. Brouwer ◽

Sabine Peters ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Longitudinal Study ◽

Alcohol Use ◽

Brain Morphology

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Associations between stool micro-transcriptome, gut microbiota, and infant growth

Journal of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease ◽

10.1017/s2040174420001324 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 1-7

Author(s):

Molly C. Carney ◽

Xiang Zhan ◽

Akanksha Rangnekar ◽

Maria Z. Chroneos ◽

Sarah J.C. Craig ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Gut Microbiota ◽

Microbial Activity ◽

Metabolic Pathways ◽

Weight Status ◽

Transcriptional Activity ◽

High Throughput Sequencing ◽

Infant Growth ◽

Adult Obesity ◽

Term Infants ◽

Ribonucleic Acids

Abstract Rapid infant growth increases the risk for adult obesity. The gut microbiome is associated with early weight status; however, no study has examined how interactions between microbial and host ribonucleic acid (RNA) expression influence infant growth. We hypothesized that dynamics in infant stool micro-ribonucleic acids (miRNAs) would be associated with both microbial activity and infant growth via putative metabolic targets. Stool was collected twice from 30 full-term infants, at 1 month and again between 6 and 12 months. Stool RNA were measured with high-throughput sequencing and aligned to human and microbial databases. Infant growth was measured by weight-for-length z-score at birth and 12 months. Increased RNA transcriptional activity of Clostridia (R = 0.55; Adj p = 3.7E-2) and Burkholderia (R = −0.820, Adj p = 2.62E-3) were associated with infant growth. Of the 25 human RNAs associated with growth, 16 were miRNAs. The miRNAs demonstrated significant target enrichment (Adj p < 0.05) for four metabolic pathways. There were four associations between growth-related miRNAs and growth-related phyla. We have shown that longitudinal trends in gut microbiota activity and human miRNA levels are associated with infant growth and the metabolic targets of miRNAs suggest these molecules may regulate the biosynthetic landscape of the gut and influence microbial activity.

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Effects of eight neuropsychiatric copy number variants on human brain structure

Translational Psychiatry ◽

10.1038/s41398-021-01490-9 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Claudia Modenato ◽

Kuldeep Kumar ◽

Clara Moreau ◽

Sandra Martin-Brevet ◽

Guillaume Huguet ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Copy Number ◽

Copy Number Variants ◽

Principal Component ◽

Brain Morphology ◽

Brain Anatomy ◽

Brain Morphometry ◽

Supplementary Motor Cortex ◽

Psychiatric Conditions ◽

Latent Dimension ◽

Mirror Effects

AbstractMany copy number variants (CNVs) confer risk for the same range of neurodevelopmental symptoms and psychiatric conditions including autism and schizophrenia. Yet, to date neuroimaging studies have typically been carried out one mutation at a time, showing that CNVs have large effects on brain anatomy. Here, we aimed to characterize and quantify the distinct brain morphometry effects and latent dimensions across 8 neuropsychiatric CNVs. We analyzed T1-weighted MRI data from clinically and non-clinically ascertained CNV carriers (deletion/duplication) at the 1q21.1 (n = 39/28), 16p11.2 (n = 87/78), 22q11.2 (n = 75/30), and 15q11.2 (n = 72/76) loci as well as 1296 non-carriers (controls). Case-control contrasts of all examined genomic loci demonstrated effects on brain anatomy, with deletions and duplications showing mirror effects at the global and regional levels. Although CNVs mainly showed distinct brain patterns, principal component analysis (PCA) loaded subsets of CNVs on two latent brain dimensions, which explained 32 and 29% of the variance of the 8 Cohen’s d maps. The cingulate gyrus, insula, supplementary motor cortex, and cerebellum were identified by PCA and multi-view pattern learning as top regions contributing to latent dimension shared across subsets of CNVs. The large proportion of distinct CNV effects on brain morphology may explain the small neuroimaging effect sizes reported in polygenic psychiatric conditions. Nevertheless, latent gene brain morphology dimensions will help subgroup the rapidly expanding landscape of neuropsychiatric variants and dissect the heterogeneity of idiopathic conditions.

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Brain morphology predicts social intelligence in wild cleaner fish

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/s41467-020-20130-2 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Zegni Triki ◽

Yasmin Emery ◽

Magda C. Teles ◽

Rui F. Oliveira ◽

Redouan Bshary

Keyword(s):

Social Intelligence ◽

Brain Plasticity ◽

Decision Rules ◽

Brain Morphology ◽

Brain Anatomy ◽

Environmental Complexity ◽

Learning Abilities ◽

Cleaner Fish ◽

High Performing ◽

Selective Pressures

AbstractIt is generally agreed that variation in social and/or environmental complexity yields variation in selective pressures on brain anatomy, where more complex brains should yield increased intelligence. While these insights are based on many evolutionary studies, it remains unclear how ecology impacts brain plasticity and subsequently cognitive performance within a species. Here, we show that in wild cleaner fish (Labroides dimidiatus), forebrain size of high-performing individuals tested in an ephemeral reward task covaried positively with cleaner density, while cerebellum size covaried negatively with cleaner density. This unexpected relationship may be explained if we consider that performance in this task reflects the decision rules that individuals use in nature rather than learning abilities: cleaners with relatively larger forebrains used decision-rules that appeared to be locally optimal. Thus, social competence seems to be a suitable proxy of intelligence to understand individual differences under natural conditions.

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