RUNNING HEAD: COMPENSATORY GROWTH IMPAIRS ADULT COGNITIVE

PERFORMANCE 1

Compensatory Growth Impairs Adult Cognitive Performance

Final Paper

Solomon Larsen

Biology 1615

Nicole Pearson

March, 27, 2017

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Many organisms have some way for making up for experiencing poor nutrition, however

these methods may result in negative effects that will not be known until much later in life. Some

possible results of poor nutrition early in life may include issues with body growth, and slower

cognitive performance later in life. Poor early nutrition prevents the body from growing,

however after receiving poor nutrition if you receive the nutrients you need your body will go

through a compensatory growth phase in which your body works to make up for the lack of

growth earlier in life. There is strong evidence that this also results in poor mental health, but it is

difficult to test whether this is because of poor nutrition or a result of the compensatory growth

phase that follows after.

By studying this topic they hope to find a way to cure or repair any mental or physical

damage that may have happened to an organism due to poor nutrition earlier in life

According to the article Compensatory Growth Impairs Adult Cognitive Performance

Their hypothesis is Impairments of performance in adults are caused by a shortage of nutrients

and consequent slowing of growth during crucial stages of development, or a negative

consequence of the compensatory growth that often follows the period of poor nutrition. In

other words if a person is having trouble learning later in life it is possible it could be caused by

either poor nutrition as they were growing, or caused by the compensative growth phase that

follows poor nutrition.

They set up the experiment by obtaining young zebras and birds. They tested on two pairs

of siblings, one pair was male, and one female, they put a female and a male in two groups they
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gave one group the nutrition they needed to grow Group N, and the other experienced early

nutritional deficiency Group D. During the first 20 days they tested the effects of nutrient

deficiency, from day 20-70 they gave both groups normal nutrition and tested the compensative

growth that occurred after. To test the cognitive abilities they put each group through a course of

16 associative learning trials.

The results of this experiments were somewhat expected. After the nutritional deficiency

period day 1-20 there were no difference in the growth or cognitive abilities of the two groups

of zebras, after the post deficient period day 20-70 there were also no difference in growth, but

the group with the early poor nutrition took longer to learn the given tests then the group who

received good nutrition.

The results with the birds were a little different. After the nutrition deficiency phase, the

birds in Group D hadnt grown nearly as much as group N. After the compensatory growth

period day 20-70 both groups were nearly the same weight. When they tested the learning

abilities of each group, both groups passed but it took much longer for the birds from group D

to pass. The results from the birds were expected. The results for the zebras was somewhat

unexpected, they hypothesized that there would be a difference in growth and development of the

zebra that went through nutritional deprivation, but there was no change. Part of this could be

due to the fact there were many variables they havent been keeping track of for example they

how active each of the organisms were throughout the day.

Overall the scientists working on this learned a lot about the effects of poor nutrition. The

experiment supported their hypothesis for the most part, and this research gave them a better

understanding of nutrition deficiency.

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References

Article Compensatory Growth Impairs Adult Cognitive Performance. Michael O. Fisher, Ruedi

G. Nager, Pat Monaghan* Division of Environmental Evolutionary Biology, Institute of

Biomedical and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom