Infecting Pregnant Mice Disrupts Fetal Brain, Inducing Autism

Abstract

Infecting pregnant mice can activate immune responses that disrupt fetal brain development, causing autism spectrum disorder (ASD)-like syndrome in newborn mice, according to Gloria Choi of Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Mass., and her collaborators there and at several other institutions. The inflammatory cytokine IL-17a orchestrates that pathology, a finding with implications for preventive and therapeutic strategies if the mechanism in mice applies to humans, they say. Details appeared online 28 January 2016 in Science (doi: 10.1126/science.aad0314).