AMBROSIAC - A Menu for Brain Responses Opposing Stress-Induced Alterations in Cognition

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Diet and nutritional habits significantly impact on brain fitness, mental and cognitive health throughout life. The relative abundance of specific dietary nutrients, depending on intake, bioavailability and metabolism, affects mental health and cognitive ability via direct and indirect mechanisms that modulate neuronal function and synaptic plasticity. Optimum nutrition is a key determinant in the well-being of the healthy ageing population world-wide, as ageing is characterized by a decline in metabolism and homeostatic processes as well as age-related cognitive impairment over time, leading to functional decline and increased risk for disease. Chronic stress has been shown to negatively impact brain plasticity and cognitive performance, in particular in the ageing brain. Interestingly, the aged brain resembles the stressed brain on both behavioural and cellular levels and stress-induced cognitive alterations are likely to be more marked in the elderly. Likewise, poor nutritional habits are hypothesized to correlate with a heightened stress reactivity and susceptibility and greater cognitive decline in elderly, supporting the notion that interactions between nutritional factors and stress susceptibility represent critical determinants of cognitive performance and age-related cognitive decline.