Model For Sensitive Periods in Early Flavor Learning

早期风味学习敏感期模型

• 批准号: 8605884
• 负责人: JULIA ANNE MENNELLA
• 金额: $ 34.95万
• 依托单位: MONELL CHEMICAL SENSES CENTER
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 1999
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1999-01-01 至 2017-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8605884
• 关键词: Address; Adult; Affect; Age-Months; Animals; Beets; Behavior; Behavior Therapy; Behavioral; Brain; Cabbage - dietary; Carrots - dietary; Cattle; Child; Clinical Research; Data Set; Development; Diet; Diet Habits; Discipline of Nursing; Eating; Eating Behavior; Educational process of instructing; Exposure to; Family; Flavoring; Food; Food Habits; Food Preferences; Genetic; Genetic Variation; Genotype; Glean; Goals; Health Food; Home environment; Human; Human Milk; Individual Differences; Infant; Intervention; Knowledge; Lactation; Lead; Learning; Life; Light; Long-Term Effects; Longevity; Mammals; Methodology; Methods; Milk; Modeling; Mothers; Odors; Phenotype; Plague; Population; Procedures; Psychophysics; Randomized; Randomized Clinical Trials; Research; Sensory; Societies; Solid; Study Subject; Taste Perception; Testing; Time; To specify; Translating; Vegetables; Weaning; Woman; Work; aged; base; critical period; early experience; experience; feeding; food consumption; food flavor; hedonic; innovation; knowledge of results; member; novel; nutrition; postnatal; preference; randomized trial; receptor; reproductive; research study; response

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.

描述（由申请人提供）：早期营养会对行为产生深远的影响：新兴研究表明，出生后发育过程中存在敏感期，其中发育中的大脑对环境影响（包括食物的味道）更加敏感。虽然儿童天生的口味喜好和厌恶对健康饮食造成障碍，但对人类和其他动物的研究表明，早期的经历会影响这些喜好和厌恶。面临的挑战是确定是否存在体验促进人们更喜欢健康食品口味的最佳时间。我们之前的实验表明，与其他哺乳动物一样，哺乳期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 个月的时间内对女性及其婴儿进行一项详细的受试者内和受试者间随机研究，改变接触三种蔬菜口味（胡萝卜、甜菜和卷心菜）的时间和持续时间，以确定对女性及其婴儿的影响。孩子对这些口味的接受程度、母亲自己对这些食物的喜好，以及母亲在断奶后给孩子喂这些食物的可能性。基于先前对人类和其他动物进行的可靠研究，拟议研究的总体目标是明确婴儿通过风味多样性学习风味的敏感期的时间（具体目标 1）和后果（具体目标 2）母乳中的蔬菜，并确定生殖状态（具体目标 3）和遗传变异（具体目标 4）对新产母亲及其孩子的蔬菜喜好的影响。这项研究背后的假设，研究了围绕如何将蔬菜引入儿童饮食的高度普遍且调查不足的行为现象，重点关注早期生活，与许多其他试图改变年龄较大儿童饮食习惯的研究不同，重点关注母婴这是二元关系，因为母亲在敏感时期的食物消费和喂养选择可能会对儿童日后的食物接触和选择产生深远的影响。了解母亲应该在什么时间吃食物以形成偏好最有效，可以为婴儿及其母亲及其家人制定干预策略。此外，了解了解母乳味道的敏感期的时间将有助于揭示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的知识可以转化为有效的行为干预措施，以促进有效且广泛实施的蔬菜接受度。