In 2013, University of Colorado psychiatrist Robert Freedman and colleagues recruited 100 healthy, pregnant women from greater Denver to study whether giving the B vitamin choline during pregnancy would enhance brain growth in the developing fetus.
The moms-to-be were randomly given either a placebo or a form of choline called phosphatidylcholine. Choline itself is broken down by bacteria in the gut; by giving it in this related form the supplement can more effectively be absorbed into the bloodstream.
Those in the treatment group received 3,600 milligrams of phosphatidylcholine in the morning and 2,700 milligrams at night. Since phosphatidylcholine is roughly 13-15 percent choline, the amount the women received was about 900 milligrams of choline a day, twice that recommended by the Health and Medicine Division of the National Academies (and about the same amount contained in three large eggs).
After birth, infants were given either 100 milligrams of liquid phosphatidylcholine or placebo once a day for approximately three months. Given that both groups were also getting choline from regular feeding, the dose ensured that those supplemented received well over the Institute of Medicine’s guideline that infants receive at least 125 milligrams a day.
At 5 weeks old, the children were exposed to a series of clicking sounds in the lab while their brain activity was monitored by electroencephalogram, or EEG, a method for recording electrical brain activity via electrodes placed on the scalp. Normally, when exposed to the same sound successively, both infant and adult brains will exhibit “inhibition,” or a far weaker pulse of activity in response to the second sound. We realize that the now familiar tone is insignificant; our brains are unmoved.
However, in some kids this inhibition doesn’t occur — a finding linked with an increased risk for attention problems, social withdrawal and, later in life, schizophrenia.
