The Impact of Diet Quality on Structural Neurodevelopment in Children: an MRI Study
Open Access
- Author:
- Beneke, Estelle
- Area of Honors:
- Science
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- Emma Jane Rose, Thesis Supervisor
John R Moses-Brownson, Thesis Honors Advisor - Keywords:
- magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)
dietary quality
substance use disorder
socioeconomic status (SES)
nutrition
voxel based morphometry (VBM)
executive control
cognitive functioning
brain volume - Abstract:
- Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) was used to investigate the effects of dietary quality on structural neurodevelopment in middle childhood. Poor dietary quality has been a consistent issue across the United States, with most children not receiving sufficient nutrition to optimize brain development. Inadequate nutrition leads to structural and functional impairments in neurodevelopment (Mout et al., 2023), especially in those parts of the brain dealing with decision-making, executive function and cognitive control, as well as reward and motivation. Dysregulation of these key brain regions may be implicated in the development of risky behavior such as substance use disorders (SUDs) (Jakubiec et al., 2022). While there is a broad spectrum of research investigating the effects of poor dietary quality on structural neurodevelopment, there is little research exploring the unique role of poor dietary quality in comparison to more general SES-related impacts on SUD risk. Furthermore, it is still largely unknown which structural neurodevelopmental changes could underlie an association between poor dietary quality and the development of SUD in low SES individuals. This study is aimed to fill this gap and aid in understanding whether the kinds of structural brain changes already associated with poor nutrition, might constitute a risk factor for later SUD. Results revealed that there was a significant positive association between brain volume, particularly in the dorsal striatum, and dietary quality (left striatum: T (27) = 5.08, p (uncorrected) < 0.001; right striatum: T (27) = 4.53, p (uncorrected) < 0.01) as measured by the Dietary Guideline Index for Children and Adolescents (DGI-CA). There were no significant correlations between brain volume and cognitive performance as measured by IQ, impulse control, or attention. These findings indicate those with poorer dietary quality may have decreased executive control and are possibly more at risk for developing a future SUD. However, there remains a need for further study using larger samples with a wider range of dietary quality and exploring whether during at-rest or goal-oriented tasks, the brain’s networks are engaged in the same way irrespective of dietary quality.