Neurological Development

For clear ethical and medical reasons, consideration of the importance of diet in neurological development in humans is largely limited to describing outcomes following unplanned and uncontrolled nutritional insults. Brain development could be influenced at either macroscopic or microscopic levels through the influence of prenatal factors on neural tube formation or cell migration, and by prenatal, neonatal or subsequent events during childhood or adolescence influencing myelination or synapse formation. Brain circuits that contribute to the regulation of mammalian energy balance are widely distributed. The developed brain monitors physiological and metabolic events in the rest of the body through feedback from peripheral hormones and metabolites, augmented by afferent nerve signalling. There is growing evidence that nutrition during the fetal and neonatal periods influences brain function in later life. Programming mechanisms linking nutritional or other challenges to functional endpoints may involve epigenetic changes and glucocorticoid exposure.