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Breastfeeding Duration Is Associated with Regional, but Not Global, Differences in White Matter Tracts
Extended breastfeeding through infancy confers benefits on neurocognitive performance and intelligence tests, though few have examined the biological basis of these effects. To investigate correlations with breastfeeding, we examined the major white matter tracts in 4–8 year-old children using diffu...
Autores principales: | , , , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
MDPI
2019
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7016985/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31905875 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10010019 |
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author | Bauer, Christopher E. Lewis, James W. Brefczynski-Lewis, Julie Frum, Chris Schade, Margeaux M. Haut, Marc W. Montgomery-Downs, Hawley E. |
author_facet | Bauer, Christopher E. Lewis, James W. Brefczynski-Lewis, Julie Frum, Chris Schade, Margeaux M. Haut, Marc W. Montgomery-Downs, Hawley E. |
author_sort | Bauer, Christopher E. |
collection | PubMed |
description | Extended breastfeeding through infancy confers benefits on neurocognitive performance and intelligence tests, though few have examined the biological basis of these effects. To investigate correlations with breastfeeding, we examined the major white matter tracts in 4–8 year-old children using diffusion tensor imaging and volumetric measurements of the corpus callosum. We found a significant correlation between the duration of infant breastfeeding and fractional anisotropy scores in left-lateralized white matter tracts, including the left superior longitudinal fasciculus and left angular bundle, which is indicative of greater intrahemispheric connectivity. However, in contrast to expectations from earlier studies, no correlations were observed with corpus callosum size, and thus no correlations were observed when using such measures of global interhemispheric white matter connectivity development. These findings suggest a complex but significant positive association between breastfeeding duration and white matter connectivity, including in pathways known to be functionally relevant for reading and language development. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-7016985 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2019 |
publisher | MDPI |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-70169852020-02-28 Breastfeeding Duration Is Associated with Regional, but Not Global, Differences in White Matter Tracts Bauer, Christopher E. Lewis, James W. Brefczynski-Lewis, Julie Frum, Chris Schade, Margeaux M. Haut, Marc W. Montgomery-Downs, Hawley E. Brain Sci Article Extended breastfeeding through infancy confers benefits on neurocognitive performance and intelligence tests, though few have examined the biological basis of these effects. To investigate correlations with breastfeeding, we examined the major white matter tracts in 4–8 year-old children using diffusion tensor imaging and volumetric measurements of the corpus callosum. We found a significant correlation between the duration of infant breastfeeding and fractional anisotropy scores in left-lateralized white matter tracts, including the left superior longitudinal fasciculus and left angular bundle, which is indicative of greater intrahemispheric connectivity. However, in contrast to expectations from earlier studies, no correlations were observed with corpus callosum size, and thus no correlations were observed when using such measures of global interhemispheric white matter connectivity development. These findings suggest a complex but significant positive association between breastfeeding duration and white matter connectivity, including in pathways known to be functionally relevant for reading and language development. MDPI 2019-12-30 /pmc/articles/PMC7016985/ /pubmed/31905875 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10010019 Text en © 2019 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). |
spellingShingle | Article Bauer, Christopher E. Lewis, James W. Brefczynski-Lewis, Julie Frum, Chris Schade, Margeaux M. Haut, Marc W. Montgomery-Downs, Hawley E. Breastfeeding Duration Is Associated with Regional, but Not Global, Differences in White Matter Tracts |
title | Breastfeeding Duration Is Associated with Regional, but Not Global, Differences in White Matter Tracts |
title_full | Breastfeeding Duration Is Associated with Regional, but Not Global, Differences in White Matter Tracts |
title_fullStr | Breastfeeding Duration Is Associated with Regional, but Not Global, Differences in White Matter Tracts |
title_full_unstemmed | Breastfeeding Duration Is Associated with Regional, but Not Global, Differences in White Matter Tracts |
title_short | Breastfeeding Duration Is Associated with Regional, but Not Global, Differences in White Matter Tracts |
title_sort | breastfeeding duration is associated with regional, but not global, differences in white matter tracts |
topic | Article |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7016985/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31905875 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/brainsci10010019 |
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