Nutrition and the neural development of spatial cognition using fMRI

Childhood obesity is one of the most serious public health challenges of the
21st century. Childhood obesity has moved to the center of attention since
overweight children are likely to stay obese into adulthood. Obesity is highly
associated with dietary quality, and poor dietary quality is associated with
cognitive decline. Recent evidence suggests that chronic low-grade systemic
inflammation and subsequent neuroinflammation may underlie this association. In
adults, poor dietary quality has indeed been linked to reduced performance in a
spatial cognition task. One brain structure particularly prone to
neuroinflammation is the hippocampus, which is also the core brain hub for
spatial cognition. In line with these findings, a recent rodent study
demonstrated high fat diet-induced detriments in spatial cognition, which were
mediated by enhanced inflammation of the hippocampus. Importantly, these
findings were particularly strong in juvenile rats, i.e. during development,
rather than in adult rats. The relationship between nutrition and the
neurodevelopment of spatial cognition, including the mediating effects of
inflammation have not yet been investigated in children. Here, we propose to
examine the effects of diet and inflammation on the neural development of
spatial cognition in primary school children. We adopt a spatial cognition
paradigm that allows investigation of training induced neural plasticity
changes.

To assess whether nutrition status can predict the outcome of spatial cognition
training, how this is represented in the brain and whether this is mediated by
inflammation.

The proposed study uses an intervention consisting of a spatial cognition
training, to assess the relationship between nutrition and the neural
development of spatial cognition. The assessment of nutrition is observational.

All participants will use a computer game to train spatial cognition for 7
days.

The children are not exposed to any risks when participating in this study.
Participants will come to the Donders Institute three times: (1) for the intake
session (max 80 minutes, including 5 minutes anatomical MRI scan), (2) for the
pre-scan session (65-80 minutes in total, of which 30 minutes in the MRI
scanner) and after seven days (3) for the post-scan session (50 minutes in
total, of which 30 minutes in the MRI scanner). Saliva samples will be
collected twice, after the pre and after the post scan session. In between the
pre- and the post-scan session, subjects will perform the spatial cognition
training from a computer at home, for 30 minutes a day, 7 days in a row.