TY - JOUR
T1 - An examination of maternal prenatal BMI and human fetal brain development
AU - Norr, Megan E.
AU - Hect, Jasmine L.
AU - Lenniger, Carly J.
AU - Van den Heuvel, Martijn
AU - Thomason, Moriah E.
N1 - Funding Information: This project was supported by awards to M.E.T. from the National Institutes of Health, R01 MH110793, R34 DA050287, R01 MH122447, R21 ES026022, and P30 ES020957, and by a NARSAD Young Investigator Award. The authors thank Pavan Jella, Toni Lewis, Sydney Rooks, Sophia Neuenfeldt, and Janessa Manning for their assistance in data acquisition. The authors also thank participant families who generously shared their time. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health Copyright: Copyright 2021 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.
PY - 2021/4
Y1 - 2021/4
N2 - Background: Prenatal development is a time when the brain is acutely vulnerable to insult and alteration by environmental factors (e.g., toxins, maternal health). One important risk factor is maternal obesity (Body Mass Index > 30). Recent research indicates that high maternal BMI during pregnancy is associated with increased risk for numerous physical health, cognitive, and mental health problems in offspring across the lifespan. It is possible that heightened maternal prenatal BMI influences the developing brain even before birth. Methods: The present study examines this possibility at the level of macrocircuitry in the human fetal brain. Using a data-driven strategy for parcellating the brain into subnetworks, we test whether MRI functional connectivity within or between fetal neural subnetworks varies with maternal prenatal BMI in 109 fetuses between the ages of 26 and 39weeks. Results: We discovered that strength of connectivity between two subnetworks, left anterior insula/inferior frontal gyrus (aIN/IFG) and bilateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), varied with maternal BMI. At the level of individual aIN/IFG-PFC connections, we observed both increased and decreased between-network connectivity with a tendency for increased within-hemisphere connectivity and reduced cross-hemisphere connectivity in higher BMI pregnancies. Maternal BMI was not associated with global differences in network topography based on network-based statistical analyses. Conclusions: Overall effects were localized in regions that will later support behavioral regulation and integrative processes, regions commonly associated with obesity-related deficits. By establishing onset in neural differences prior to birth, this study supports a model in which maternal BMI-related risk is associated with fetal connectome-level brain organization with implications for offspring long-term cognitive development and mental health.
AB - Background: Prenatal development is a time when the brain is acutely vulnerable to insult and alteration by environmental factors (e.g., toxins, maternal health). One important risk factor is maternal obesity (Body Mass Index > 30). Recent research indicates that high maternal BMI during pregnancy is associated with increased risk for numerous physical health, cognitive, and mental health problems in offspring across the lifespan. It is possible that heightened maternal prenatal BMI influences the developing brain even before birth. Methods: The present study examines this possibility at the level of macrocircuitry in the human fetal brain. Using a data-driven strategy for parcellating the brain into subnetworks, we test whether MRI functional connectivity within or between fetal neural subnetworks varies with maternal prenatal BMI in 109 fetuses between the ages of 26 and 39weeks. Results: We discovered that strength of connectivity between two subnetworks, left anterior insula/inferior frontal gyrus (aIN/IFG) and bilateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), varied with maternal BMI. At the level of individual aIN/IFG-PFC connections, we observed both increased and decreased between-network connectivity with a tendency for increased within-hemisphere connectivity and reduced cross-hemisphere connectivity in higher BMI pregnancies. Maternal BMI was not associated with global differences in network topography based on network-based statistical analyses. Conclusions: Overall effects were localized in regions that will later support behavioral regulation and integrative processes, regions commonly associated with obesity-related deficits. By establishing onset in neural differences prior to birth, this study supports a model in which maternal BMI-related risk is associated with fetal connectome-level brain organization with implications for offspring long-term cognitive development and mental health.
KW - Functional connectivity
KW - fMRI
KW - obesity
KW - prenatal
KW - resting-state
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85089179071&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85089179071&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13301
DO - https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.13301
M3 - Article
C2 - 32779186
SN - 0021-9630
VL - 62
SP - 458
EP - 469
JO - Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines
JF - Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry and Allied Disciplines
IS - 4
ER -