The Time of Prenatal Immune Challenge Determines the Specificity of Inflammation-Mediated Brain and Behavioral Pathology

Disturbance to early brain development is implicated in several neuropsychiatric disorders including autism, schizophrenia, and mental retardation. Epidemiological studies have indicated that the risk of developing these disorders is enhanced by prenatal maternal infection, presumably as a result of neurodevelopmental defects triggered by cytokine-related inflammatory events. Here, we demonstrate that the effects of maternal immune challenge between middle and late gestation periods in mice are dissociable in terms of fetal brain cytokine responses to maternal inflammation and the pathological consequences in brain and behavior. Specifically, the relative expression of pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines in…

• NS
  National Science Foundation
• SN
  Schweizerischer Nationalfonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung
• ET
  Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich