title: Maternal prenatal iron status and tissue organization in the neonatal brain.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Children prenatally exposed to inadequate iron have poorer motor and neurocognitive development. No prior study to our knowledge has assessed the influence of maternal prenatal iron intake on newborn brain tissue organization in full-term infants.
  
  
  METHODS
  Third trimester daily iron intake was obtained using the Automated Self-Administered 24-h Dietary Recall with n = 40 healthy pregnant adolescents (aged 14-19 y). Cord blood ferritin was collected in a subsample (n = 16). Newborn (mean = 39 gestational weeks at birth; range 37-41) magnetic resonance imaging scans were acquired on a 3.0 Tesla MR Scanner. Diffusion Tensor Imaging (DTI) slices were acquired to measure the directional diffusion of water indexed by fractional anisotropy (FA).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Reported iron intake was inversely associated with newborn FA values (P ≤ 0.0001) predominantly in cortical gray matter. FA findings were similar using cord blood ferritin values.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Higher maternal prenatal iron intake accentuates, and lower intake attenuates, the normal age-related decline in FA values in gray matter, perhaps representing increasing dendritic arborization and synapse formation with higher iron intake. These DTI results suggest that typical variation in maternal iron outside the scope of standard clinical surveillance exerts subtle effects on infant brain development.
authors.affiliation: Division of Behavioral Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York.|Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York.|New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, New York.
authors.forename: Catherine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Monk
authors.affiliation: Division of Pediatric Neonatology, Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota Medical School, Minneapolis, Minnesota.
authors.forename: Michael K
authors.initials: MK
authors.lastname: Georgieff
authors.affiliation: Division of Epidemiology, Department of Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, New York.
authors.forename: Dongrong
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Xu
authors.affiliation: Division of Epidemiology, Department of Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, New York.
authors.forename: Xuejun
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Hao
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital Los Angeles and the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California.
authors.forename: Ravi
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bansal
authors.affiliation: Division of Behavioral Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York.
authors.forename: Hanna
authors.identifier: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-8258-4921
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Gustafsson
authors.affiliation: Division of Behavioral Medicine, Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center, New York, New York.
authors.forename: Julie
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Spicer
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatrics, Children's Hospital Los Angeles and the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California.|Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, California.
authors.forename: Bradley S
authors.initials: BS
authors.lastname: Peterson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D016880:Anisotropy; D001921:Brain / Q000502:physiology*; D004032:Diet; D038524:Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D056324:Diffusion Tensor Imaging; D005260:Female; D005293:Ferritins / Q000097:blood; D005312:Fetal Blood / Q000737:chemistry; D005865:Gestational Age; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007501:Iron / Q000097:blood*; D019266:Iron, Dietary / Q000097:blood; D008297:Male; D039382:Maternal Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D019965:Neurocognitive Disorders / Q000097:blood / Q000503:physiopathology; D011247:Pregnancy; D011248:Pregnancy Complications; D011263:Pregnancy Trimester, Third; D055815:Young Adult
chemical_list: D019266:Iron, Dietary; D005293:Ferritins; D007501:Iron