Table 3.

Differences in brain volume and thickness between 6 years old children fed with standard infant formula (SF), experimental infant formula (EF), or breastfed (BF) during their first 18 months of life¹.

Brain region	SF (n = 30)	EF (n = 27)	BF (n = 21)	P 2	p adj
Volume (mm 3 )
Right parietal	71,562.67 ± 7,999.80a	77,167.15 ± 8,496.22b	73,602.10 ± 7,684.33b	<0.001	0.002
Right postcentral gyrus	4,258.53 ± 633.89a	4,885.78 ± 911.37b	4,429.24 ± 797.78a,b	0.008	0.015
Right precuneus	7,144.43 ± 1,201.38a	7,856.89 ± 1,164.59b	7,283.62 ± 974.12a,b	0.029	0.009
Left orbital	3,071.83 ± 503.06a,b	3,098.48 ± 535.85a	2,628.38 ± 554.63b	0.006	0.012
Cortical thickness (mm)
Left inferior circular insular sulcus	3.08 ± 0.17b	3.21 ± 0.20a	3.069 ± 0.17b	0.010	0.012
Left occipito-temporal sulcus	2.69 ± 0.15a	2.78 ± 0.12b	2.734 ± 0.15a,b	0.047	0.027
Right postcentral sulcus	2.46 ± 0.13a	2.53 ± 0.13b	2.423 ± 0.12a,b	0.013	0.017

¹Data are means ± SD.

²P-values for differences between the COGNIS-groups. ANOVA test for normally distributed variables. Volume analysis is corrected by total brain volume.

P_adj are univariate analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) adjusted by smoking during pregnancy, maternal age, familiar socioeconomic status, age and sex of the children. Values not sharing the same suffix (a,b) were significantly different in the Bonferroni post-hoc test. P < 0.05 are highlighted in bold.

SF, Standard infant formula; EF, Experimental infant formula; BF, Breastfed infants.