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. 2020 Feb;10(2):e01522.
doi: 10.1002/brb3.1522. Epub 2020 Jan 5.

Sex differences in the association between prenatal exposure to maternal obesity and hippocampal volume in children

Jasmin M Alves  1   2 , Shan Luo  1   2 , Ting Chow  3 , Megan Herting  4 , Anny H Xiang  3 , Kathleen A Page  1   2
Affiliations

Sex differences in the association between prenatal exposure to maternal obesity and hippocampal volume in children

Jasmin M Alves et al. Brain Behav. 2020 Feb.

Abstract

Introduction: Animal studies have shown that male but not female offspring exposed to maternal obesity have abnormal hippocampal development. Similar sex differences were observed in animal models of developmental programming by prenatal stress or maternal diabetes. We aimed to translate this work into humans by examining sex-specific effects of exposure to maternal obesity on hippocampal volume in children.

Methods: Eighty-eight children (37 boys and 51 girls) aged 7-11 years completed the study. Maternal prepregnancy body mass index (BMI) was obtained from electronic medical records. A high-resolution anatomical scan was performed using a 3-Tesla magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. Total hippocampal volume and hippocampal subfield volumes were analyzed using FreeSurfer 6.0. Linear regression was used to investigate sex differences in relationships between maternal prepregnancy BMI and child hippocampal volume.

Results: Maternal prepregnancy BMI ranged from 19.0 to 50.4 kg/m2 . We observed a significant interaction between maternal prepregnancy BMI and sex on total hippocampal volume (p < .001) such that boys (r = -.39, p = .018) but not girls (r = .11, p = .45) had a significant negative relationship between maternal prepregnancy BMI and total hippocampal volume. This relationship in boys remained significant after adjusting for child and maternal covariates (β = -126.98, p = .012). The sex interactions with prepregnancy BMI were consistently observed in hippocampal subfields CA1 (p = .008), CA2/3 (p = .016), CA4 (p = .002), dentate gyrus (p < .001), and subiculum (p < .001).

Conclusions: Our results support findings in animal models and suggest that boys may be more vulnerable to the adverse effects of exposure to maternal obesity on hippocampal development than girls.

Keywords: childhood; hippocampal subfields; hippocampal volume; maternal obesity; sex differences.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
For (a), boys depicted as “turquoise circles.” Girls depicted as “purple squares”; for (b), boys depicted as “circles.” Girls depicted as “squares.” CA1 subfield denoted in blue, subiculum denoted in pink, dentate gyrus denoted in red, CA4 denoted in green, and CA2/3 denoted in gray
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