How pregnancy nutrition and infections shape a baby's early brain
Official title: Nutrition and Inflammation in Pregnancy: Impacts on Early Human Brain Development
Funded at Brown University · NIH-11514578 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project looks at whether better maternal nutrition and lower inflammation during pregnancy help fetal brain growth for pregnant women and their unborn babies in low-resource settings.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Brown University NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Providence, United States) |
| Project start | July 1, 2022 |
| Project end | March 31, 2027 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $293,696 |
| NIH project number | 3R01HD106106-06S1 |
| Project ID | NIH-11514578 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal participants are pregnant women in low-resource settings—especially in Sub-Saharan Africa—who are enrolled in the partnering randomized trial during pregnancy.
✕Less likely to help
People who are not pregnant or who live outside the trial region (or pregnant women without undernutrition or infection risks) are unlikely to be eligible or benefit directly from this specific project.
What this research studies
If you join, you'll be part of an ongoing trial that follows pregnant women through pregnancy and into early infancy. Researchers will collect health information, blood samples, and measures of nutrition, infection, and inflammation, including markers that control iron availability. They will link those biological measures to newborn and infant brain development and early cognitive outcomes. The team aims to identify modifiable prenatal factors that could be improved to support a child's brain before birth.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could lead to clearer prenatal nutrition and infection interventions that help protect fetal brain development in low-resource settings.
How similar studies have gone: Animal and observational human studies suggest links between maternal nutrition, inflammation, and brain development, but rigorous randomized human evidence on these specific prenatal biological pathways is still limited.
Where this research is happening
-
Brown University
Providence, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Lee, Anne Shee Cc — Brown University
- Study coordinator: Lee, Anne Shee Cc
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.