Maternal diet and vulnerability to cognitive impairment in adulthood: possible link with Alzheimer's disease?

Abstract

Aging is the main risk factor for developing cognitive impairments and associated neurodegenerative diseases. However environmental factors, including nutritional health, are likely to promote or reduce cognitive impairments and neurodegenerative pathologies. An intricate relationship exists between maternal nutrition; and adult eating behavior, metabolic phenotype and cognitive abilities. The objective of the present review was to collect available data suggesting a link between maternal overnutrition and latter impairment of cognitive functions in the progeny, and to related this relationship with Alzheimer's disease (AD). Indeed, cognitive impairments are major behavioral signs of AD. We first reviewed studies showing an association between unbalanced maternal diet and cognitive impairments in the progeny in humans and rodent models. Then we looked for cellular and molecular hallmarks which could constitute a breeding ground for AD in those models. With this end, we focused on synaptic dysfunction, altered neurogenesis, neuroinflammation and oxidative stress, and pathological protein aggregation. Finally, we proposed an indirect mechanism linking maternal unbalanced diet and progeny's vulnerability to cognitive impairments and neurodegeneration through promoting metabolic diseases. We also discussed the involvement of progeny's gut microbiota in the maternal diet-induced vulnerability to metabolic and neurodegenerative diseases. Further investigations are needed to fully decipher how maternal diet programs the fetus and infant brain. Addressing this knowledge gap would pave the way to precise nutrition and personalized medicine to better handle cognitive impairments in adulthood.