The latest international research: high-fat diet during pregnancy may have a stronger effect on the nervous system of male offspring

Beijing, Nov.
30 (Reporter Sun Zifa) Springer Nature's professional academic journal "Nature-Metabolism" published a new paper saying that researchers based on research on mouse and human tissues found that a high-fat diet during pregnancy may increase the susceptibility of offspring, especially male offspring
, to neurological diseases by disrupting communication between the placenta and the fetal brain.

Previous studies have found that obesity during pregnancy is associated with metabolic changes in offspring and may increase susceptibility to neurological diseases, such as anxiety and depression
, according to the paper.
Although previous studies have pointed to gender bias in the emergence of these diseases, few studies have explored the mechanisms behind these behavioral changes, especially at
the level of sex-specificity.

Corresponding author Staci Bilbo of Duke University and collaborators compared how the diet of mice during pregnancy affects male and female offspring
.
By analyzing fetal brain and placental tissue, as well as behavioral indicators of mouse offspring, such as communication, response to social stimuli, and reward-seeking behavior
with a preference for sugar water.
They found that male mice fed a high-fat diet had reduced serotonin availability in their
brains.
Further studies found that this persisted until the mice reached adulthood and may also lead to behavioral changes in male mice, such as a reduced preference for sugar water, which is also an indicator
of lack of reward behavior.

In addition to studying mice, the authors also compared and analyzed human fetal brain and placental tissue and found that high maternal blood lipids (a proxy measure of dietary fat content) were associated with
low serotonin levels in the brains of male fetuses in humans and mice males.

The authors suggest that their findings may describe a previously unknown mechanism
by which diet during pregnancy affects the behavioral traits of male mice's offspring.
They also caution that further research is needed to understand the full impact of this mechanism and the influence
of the maternal environment on the emergence of neurological disorders.
(End)