RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 The Time of Prenatal Immune Challenge Determines the Specificity of Inflammation-Mediated Brain and Behavioral Pathology
JF The Journal of Neuroscience
JO J. Neurosci.
FD Society for Neuroscience
SP 4752
OP 4762
DO 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.0099-06.2006
VO 26
IS 18
A1 Meyer, Urs
A1 Nyffeler, Myriel
A1 Engler, Andrea
A1 Urwyler, Adrian
A1 Schedlowski, Manfred
A1 Knuesel, Irene
A1 Yee, Benjamin K.
A1 Feldon, Joram
YR 2006
UL http://www.jneurosci.org/content/26/18/4752.abstract
AB 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 the fetal brains in response to maternal immune challenge may be an important determinant among other developmental factors for the precise pathological profile emerging in later life. Thus, the middle and late gestation periods correspond to two windows with differing vulnerability to adult behavioral dysfunction, brain neuropathology in early adolescence, and of the acute cytokine responses in the fetal brain.