Perinatal Choline Effects on Neonatal Pathophysiology Related to Later Schizophrenia Risk

This is an exciting and highly important paper describing a novel perinatal treatment of a risk factor for schizophrenia. Deficient cerebral inhibition is a brain deficit related to poor sensory gating and attention in schizophrenia and other disorders. This inhibition develops perinatally, influenced by genetic and in utero factors. Amniotic choline activates fetal α7-nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and facilitates development of cerebral inhibition. Increasing this activation may protect infants from future illness by promoting normal brain development. That supplementation of the diet with choline improves P50 inhibition in infants represents a paradigm shifting approach to the prevention of psychiatric illness. It was a finding like this that led to the now routine regimen for pregnant women to take folic acid supplements.