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Infantile Iron Deficiency Affects Brain Development in Monkeys Even After Treatment of Anemia

A high percent of oxidative energy metabolism is needed to support brain growth during infancy. Unhealthy diets and limited nutrition, as well as other environmental insults, can compromise these essential developmental processes. In particular, iron deficiency anemia (IDA) has been found to undermi...

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Autores principales: Vlasova, Roza M., Wang, Qian, Willette, Auriel, Styner, Martin A., Lubach, Gabriele R., Kling, Pamela J., Georgieff, Michael K., Rao, Raghavendra B., Coe, Christopher L.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7947927/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33716694
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.624107
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author Vlasova, Roza M.
Wang, Qian
Willette, Auriel
Styner, Martin A.
Lubach, Gabriele R.
Kling, Pamela J.
Georgieff, Michael K.
Rao, Raghavendra B.
Coe, Christopher L.
author_facet Vlasova, Roza M.
Wang, Qian
Willette, Auriel
Styner, Martin A.
Lubach, Gabriele R.
Kling, Pamela J.
Georgieff, Michael K.
Rao, Raghavendra B.
Coe, Christopher L.
author_sort Vlasova, Roza M.
collection PubMed
description A high percent of oxidative energy metabolism is needed to support brain growth during infancy. Unhealthy diets and limited nutrition, as well as other environmental insults, can compromise these essential developmental processes. In particular, iron deficiency anemia (IDA) has been found to undermine both normal brain growth and neurobehavioral development. Even moderate ID may affect neural maturation because when iron is limited, it is prioritized first to red blood cells over the brain. A primate model was used to investigate the neural effects of a transient ID and if deficits would persist after iron treatment. The large size and postnatal growth of the monkey brain makes the findings relevant to the metabolic and iron needs of human infants, and initiating treatment upon diagnosis of anemia reflects clinical practice. Specifically, this analysis determined whether brain maturation would still be compromised at 1 year of age if an anemic infant was treated promptly once diagnosed. The hematology and iron status of 41 infant rhesus monkeys was screened at 2-month intervals. Fifteen became ID; 12 met clinical criteria for anemia and were administered iron dextran and B vitamins for 1–2 months. MRI scans were acquired at 1 year. The volumetric and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measures from the ID infants were compared with monkeys who remained continuously iron sufficient (IS). A prior history of ID was associated with smaller total brain volumes, driven primarily by significantly less total gray matter (GM) and smaller GM volumes in several cortical regions. At the macrostructual level, the effect on white matter volumes (WM) was not as overt. However, DTI analyses of WM microstructure indicated two later-maturating anterior tracts were negatively affected. The findings reaffirm the importance of iron for normal brain development. Given that brain differences were still evident even after iron treatment and following recovery of iron-dependent hematological indices, the results highlight the importance of early detection and preemptive supplementation to limit the neural consequences of ID.
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spelling pubmed-79479272021-03-12 Infantile Iron Deficiency Affects Brain Development in Monkeys Even After Treatment of Anemia Vlasova, Roza M. Wang, Qian Willette, Auriel Styner, Martin A. Lubach, Gabriele R. Kling, Pamela J. Georgieff, Michael K. Rao, Raghavendra B. Coe, Christopher L. Front Hum Neurosci Neuroscience A high percent of oxidative energy metabolism is needed to support brain growth during infancy. Unhealthy diets and limited nutrition, as well as other environmental insults, can compromise these essential developmental processes. In particular, iron deficiency anemia (IDA) has been found to undermine both normal brain growth and neurobehavioral development. Even moderate ID may affect neural maturation because when iron is limited, it is prioritized first to red blood cells over the brain. A primate model was used to investigate the neural effects of a transient ID and if deficits would persist after iron treatment. The large size and postnatal growth of the monkey brain makes the findings relevant to the metabolic and iron needs of human infants, and initiating treatment upon diagnosis of anemia reflects clinical practice. Specifically, this analysis determined whether brain maturation would still be compromised at 1 year of age if an anemic infant was treated promptly once diagnosed. The hematology and iron status of 41 infant rhesus monkeys was screened at 2-month intervals. Fifteen became ID; 12 met clinical criteria for anemia and were administered iron dextran and B vitamins for 1–2 months. MRI scans were acquired at 1 year. The volumetric and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) measures from the ID infants were compared with monkeys who remained continuously iron sufficient (IS). A prior history of ID was associated with smaller total brain volumes, driven primarily by significantly less total gray matter (GM) and smaller GM volumes in several cortical regions. At the macrostructual level, the effect on white matter volumes (WM) was not as overt. However, DTI analyses of WM microstructure indicated two later-maturating anterior tracts were negatively affected. The findings reaffirm the importance of iron for normal brain development. Given that brain differences were still evident even after iron treatment and following recovery of iron-dependent hematological indices, the results highlight the importance of early detection and preemptive supplementation to limit the neural consequences of ID. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-02-24 /pmc/articles/PMC7947927/ /pubmed/33716694 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.624107 Text en Copyright © 2021 Vlasova, Wang, Willette, Styner, Lubach, Kling, Georgieff, Rao and Coe. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Neuroscience
Vlasova, Roza M.
Wang, Qian
Willette, Auriel
Styner, Martin A.
Lubach, Gabriele R.
Kling, Pamela J.
Georgieff, Michael K.
Rao, Raghavendra B.
Coe, Christopher L.
Infantile Iron Deficiency Affects Brain Development in Monkeys Even After Treatment of Anemia
title Infantile Iron Deficiency Affects Brain Development in Monkeys Even After Treatment of Anemia
title_full Infantile Iron Deficiency Affects Brain Development in Monkeys Even After Treatment of Anemia
title_fullStr Infantile Iron Deficiency Affects Brain Development in Monkeys Even After Treatment of Anemia
title_full_unstemmed Infantile Iron Deficiency Affects Brain Development in Monkeys Even After Treatment of Anemia
title_short Infantile Iron Deficiency Affects Brain Development in Monkeys Even After Treatment of Anemia
title_sort infantile iron deficiency affects brain development in monkeys even after treatment of anemia
topic Neuroscience
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7947927/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33716694
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2021.624107
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