2021 Funded projects

Diet remains one of the main drivers of obesity pandemic, inparticular the overconsumption of calorically-dense palatable foods in earlylife. There is increasing interesting to further our understanding of thepathways in the brain that drive excess unhealthy food consumption and how theyare established from the onset.

The exact causes linking prenatal and early life under- or over-nutrition with a higher risk of obesity and metabolic disease in later life remain uncertain.Previous work shows that the human body can adapt to changing nutrient availability through epigenetic mechanisms, for which plasticity is especially pronounced in early life thereby increasing the adaptability of newborns to their environment.

During infancy neural axons rapid myelination, slowly consolidatesspatiotemporally until adulthood to ensure neurotransmission. The prefrontalcortex, undergoing later myelination in newborn, is affected by neonatalintestinal microbial status, and highly implicated in the development of brainin early life.

Choline is an essential nutrientwhose availability during pregnancy shapes fetal neurodevelopment with lifelongimpacts on offspring cognitive and brain health. Recent evidence suggests thatthe Adequate Intake level may not meet the demands of pregnancy and fetalneurodevelopment, with possible lifelong consequences for the child.