Child physical activity as a modifier of the relationship between prenatal exposure to maternal overweight/obesity and neurocognitive outcomes in offspring.

ABSTRACT:

Background/objectives

With rising obesity rates among pregnant women, more children are exposed in utero to maternal obesity. In prior epidemiological studies, exposure to maternal obesity was associated with lower intelligence quotient (IQ) scores and worse cognitive abilities in offspring. Further studies have shown that offspring exposed to maternal obesity, exhibit differences in the white matter microstructure properties, fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD). In contrast, physical activity was shown to improve cognition and white matter microstructure during childhood. We examined if child physical activity levels modify the relationship between prenatal exposure to maternal obesity with IQ and white matter microstructure in offspring.

Subjects/methods

O

SUBMITTER: Alves JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8164988 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature