A mother's high-fat diet can damage the fetus's brain and cause life-long disorders, according to a study by the Center for Brain Research at the Medical University of Vienna, based on research on cell models and mice.
The researchers presented their study in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. Maternal organisms produce excess amounts of endocannabinoids during pregnancy throughout the pregnancy, thereby overloading cannabinoid receptors in the fetal brain and limiting the development of a healthy brain network.
Brain cells can no longer properly integrate into the brain and perform their assigned task. The consequences of this are diseases such as attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, schizophrenia or anxiety disorders.
Researchers say it is unlikely that these damages can be repaired later by changing the diet. Endocannabinoids are substances that are produced by the body itself. They are part of the endocannabinoid system, which functions as a basic communication system in the human brain and other organs.
Endocannabinoids reduce the chemical communication between nerve cells in the adult brain by attaching neurotransmission to cannabinoid receptors.
Endocannabinoids in the developing brain determine where nerve cells position themselves and how they develop binding. This means that any substance that affects the functioning of cannabinoids also changes brain development, the researchers emphasized.
"It is not easy to reverse these pathological changes in the epigenetics of nerve cells," the university quotes researcher Tibor Harkány. According to the expert, a healthy, low-fat diet after birth does not help.
Although the results were derived from animal models, the researcher found that the study would find a similar mechanism of action in humans.
(Source: marmalade.co.uk; hirado.com | Image: pixabay.com)