Are These Common Conditions Vitamin D Related?

Dr. James Dowd discusses the role vitamin D plays in brain development and related conditions. Find out the role vitamin D plays early in an infants development and how that might be connected to some common conditions. Are these common conditions vitamin d related?
Interviewer: Doctor, can you talk more about fetal development and specifically early brain function and vitamin D's role in that? 
Dr. Dowd: So, early brain function in an infant, a lot of things going on in an infants brain. Starting probably in the last trimester of pregnancy and then in the first 18 months to two years of life, okay. Again, remember in those 18 months or  two years, what's happening? They're learning to talk. They’re learning to walk. They're developing emotional attachments to things. They’re communicating with voice. They're communicating with language. They’re communicating with emotions and they are communicating physically with their environment. And all of this means the brain is changing very rapidly to acquire all of this new skills in very early childhood and in late fetal development. Growth factors are very important in putting all these connections together particularly nerve growth factor. And what we know in studies is that nerve growth factor is tied directly to vitamin D and that vitamin D induces the expression of nerve growth factor. And in the absence of vitamin D, nerve growth factor levels are lower. And we notice form a number of different annual models where you can induce an injury and then see how well it heals in the presence to the absence of vitamin D. There's even behavioral models because you think about, you know we think about Attention Deficit Disorder and then there's autism and there's schizophrenia and these maybe a spectrum of disorders that relate to abnormal brain development. Attention Deficit, the worst of Attention Deficit Disorder being the least severe of these and schizophrenia and autism being the most severe of these are clinical diseases.But we believe that these are developmental brain abnormalities. They're not some exposed to something late. They were probably something went to ride during brain development, in during fetal development or in the early 18 months after confinement or birth. And so it's anatomical geographical change in the brain that is occurring. And we know that vitamin D is important in the migration of neurons to different areas of the brain. We know that vitamin D is important in nerve growth factor secretion and so during brain development,vitamin D is a key player among other anabolic hormones, okay? Sex hormones from the mother and the placenta. Growth hormones from the mother and the placenta like instant related growth factors and some other means. All work in concert with vitamin D to orchestrate brain development. And the brain is sort of like a sculpture, so you start out with all of these neurons that re just kinda vibrating and you sculpted out behavior. It's like carving out walking.It's like carving out different behaviors and that's how learning happens. And so actually cells, brain cells, you carry with the whole access of brain cells and you actually, some brain cells die to create the behavior. One brain cell neuron will die allowing the other neuron to flourish and that creates the behavior that this pattern, okay. And vitamin D is absolutely critical in not only helping the one grow that survives but also turning off the one that you don't want to be there. And you can almost see how. Okay, if some neurons that were supposed to be turned off are still on, how that might contribute to a clinical diseases like autism and schizophrenia? Or how when that was supposed to flower and flourish in the absence of the right soup of growth hormones including the vitamin D didn't flourish? And you can see how this might affect a clinical syndrome later on.  So it's important for protecting your brain from injury and repair from injury. It's important for normal development of the brain. It's important for acquiring and retaining memory and cognition.These are key features of brain function during development and they manifest problems early, it can manifest later in the form of dementia and other diseases. Parkinson's disease for example.