MIND: Toddlers (H-55761)

Can we learn how your toddler’s diet impacts their cognitive development, within a couple of study visits?  

Understanding the impact of nutrition on the cognitive development of toddlers is a difficult task. Toddlers go through several important changes between the ages of 18 and 24 months, but we know little about how the foods they eat during this time impacts their development. However, new scientific developments have made it so that we are now able to study this through looking at our metabolites, which are small chemical signals left behind by the food we eat. These metabolites are found in our blood and will allow our researchers to study how the food toddlers eat affects their brain development. If we are able to study how these metabolites are linked to cognitive growth, we can also gain a greater understanding of which dietary factors can support early cognitive development in toddlers.

What is the purpose of the MIND: Toddler’s Study?

The Metabolomic Investigation of Nutrition and Development in Toddlers Study (MIND: Toddlers) wants to better understand how diet impacts the brain development of toddlers (ages 18-24m). Specifically, using this study’s data, we will first study the relationship between dietary intake in 18-24m toddlers and their cognitive development, and then examine how the molecules found in the child’s blood that came from their food are related to cognitive development in toddlers.