Model For Sensitive Periods in Early Flavor Learning

描述（由申请人提供）：早期营养可以对行为产生深远的影响：新兴研究表明，在出生后的发育过程中存在敏感期，在此期间，发育中的大脑对环境影响（包括食物的味道）具有高度敏感性。虽然儿童天生的口味好恶会给健康饮食带来障碍，但对人类和其他动物的研究表明，早期经历会影响这些好恶。我们面临的挑战是，要确定是否存在一个最佳时间，当经历促使人们更喜欢健康食品的味道时。我们之前的实验表明，和其他哺乳动物一样，哺乳母亲在哺乳期的头几个月吃什么会影响孩子的食物偏好。我们建议在16个月的时间内对妇女和她们的婴儿进行详细的随机研究，改变三种蔬菜口味（胡萝卜、甜菜和卷心菜）的暴露时间和持续时间，以确定对儿童接受这些口味的影响，他们的母亲自己对这些食物的喜爱程度，以及母亲在断奶后给孩子喂这些食物的可能性。基于之前对人类和其他动物的扎实研究，本研究的首要目标是通过母乳中的风味变化来确定婴儿风味学习敏感期的时间（具体目标1）和后果（具体目标2），并确定生殖状态（具体目标3）和遗传变异（具体目标4）对新生母亲及其子女喜欢蔬菜的影响。与许多其他试图改变大孩子饮食习惯的研究不同，这项研究的假设集中在早期生活，因为母亲在敏感时期的食物消费和喂养选择可能会对孩子以后的食物暴露和选择产生深远的影响。这项研究调查了围绕如何在儿童饮食中引入蔬菜的高度普遍和未被调查的行为现象。关于母亲应该在什么时间吃食物以形成偏好的知识，可以为婴儿及其母亲以及其家庭提供干预策略。此外，了解了解母乳味道的敏感期的时间将有助于阐明在生命早期不接触这些味道的长期影响。从这项基本行为工作中收集到的知识可以转化为有效的行为干预措施，以促进蔬菜的接受，这些干预措施是有效和广泛实施的。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Early nutrition can have far-reaching effects on behavior: emerging research has revealed the existence of sensitive periods during postnatal development in which the developing brain has heightened sensitivity to environmental influences, including flavors of foods. While children's innate taste likes and dislikes create obstacles to healthy eating, research in humans and other animals has revealed that early experience can affect these likes and dislikes. The challenge is to determine whether there are optimum times when experience promotes greater liking of the flavors of healthy foods. Our previous experiments have shown that, as with other mammals, what a nursing mother eats during the first months of lactation can influence her child's food preferences. We propose to conduct a detailed randomized within- and between-subject study of women and their infants during a 16-month window, varying the timing and duration of exposure to three vegetable flavors (carrot, beet, and cabbage) to determine effects on the acceptance of these flavors by children, their mothers' own liking of these foods, and the likelihood that mothers will feed these foods to their children after weaning. Based on solid, previous research in humans and other animals, the over-arching goals of the proposed research are to specify the timing (Specific Aim 1) and consequences (Specific Aim 2) of the sensitive period for flavor learning in infants via flavor variety in mother's milk, and to determine the effects of reproductive state (Specific Aim 3) and genetic variation (Specific Aim 4) on vegetable liking in newly parturient mothers and their children. The hypotheses behind this research, examining highly pervasive and under-investigated behavioral phenomena surrounding how to introduce vegetables to children's diets, focus on early life, unlike many other studies that attempt to modify food habits in older children, and focus on the maternal-infant dyad because mothers' food consumption and feeding choices during the sensitive period may have far-reaching consequences for children's food exposures and choices later in life. Knowledge regarding the most efficacious time mothers should eat foods to develop preferences can lead to intervention strategies for both infants and their mothers, and consequently their families. Furthermore, knowledge about the timing of a sensitive period for learning about flavors in breast milk will shed light on long-term effects of not being exposed to these flavors early in life. The knowledge gleaned from this basic behavioral work could be translated to effective behavioral interventions to promote vegetable acceptance that are effective and implemented widely. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Early experience modifies children's innate taste likes and dislikes, and promotes healthy eating behaviors. We propose a randomized trial to specify the timing and effects of the sensitive period for flavor learning in infants via flavor variety in mother's milk, and the effects of genetic variation and the mother's reproductive state on vegetable liking. This knowledge may lead to strategies for healthy eating interventions for infants, mothers, and families.