Maternal Choline Intake During Pregnancy Has Lasting Effects on Offspring Spatial Memory: Results From a 14-Year Follow-Up of a Randomized Controlled Feeding Trial

Objectives: To assess the long-term effects of prenatal maternal choline intake (480 mg/d vs. 930 mg/d) on offspring spatial memory. Methods: Adolescent offspring (n = 21) of mothers who were randomized to consume approximately the Adequate intake (AI) or twice the AI for choline during the 3rd trimester of pregnancy participated in a follow-up study. Spatial memory was assessed virtually using the Spatial Span (SSP) task from the Cambridge Cognition testing battery (CANTAB). In the SSP task, 10 white boxes are displayed on a screen and then a random subset of 3 to 9 of them are sequentially illuminated. Participants are asked to touch the boxes in the order in which they had been illuminated. The primary outcome measure, span length, is the longest sequence successfully recalled. Results: Adolescents in the 930 mg/d group averaged a span length of 7.6 ± SD 1.5 vs. 6.2 ± SD 1.6 in the 480 mg/d group, (p = 0.051). These span lengths tended to correlate with scores on a spatial memory task administered to the same children at age 7 yrs (r = 0.43, p = 0.077). A repeated measures model with both testing ages (7 & 14 yrs) revealed a significant effect of maternal choline intake group on maximum span length (p = 0.026). Conclusions: The results of this 14-year follow-up of the adolescent offspring of choline supplemented mothers suggest lasting effects of maternal choline intake on offspring spatial memory. Maternal choline intake of 480 mg/d resulted in marginally poorer spatial memory performance (vs. 930 mg/d) in the adolescents. Consistent with extensive rodent data, these findings suggest that the low choline intake of most pregnant women may not adequately support their offsprings' spatial memory function. Larger interventional trials are needed to further elucidate the enduring impacts of maternal choline intake on offspring cognition. Funding Sources: This research was supported by Balchem, The Egg Nutrition Center, and the National Institutes of Health under award 2 T32 HD087137. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of Balchem, Egg Nutrition Center, or the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) or the National Institutes of Health.