NEWS in SCIENCE
Infections During Pregnancy Might Be Causing the Rise of Autism
By L.H.
Children with autism are becoming more common in the world today, but why? According to researchers, women who have an infection during pregnancy have a higher chance of having a child with autism. Autism is generally known as a mental condition that causes a person to have issues with forming general relationships with people, as well as to behave repetitively.
The researchers studied mice to find that certain cells effect important parts of the brain, called “patches,” that are special to the loss of social abilities. The “patches” are most common in the part of the brain that allows us to process touch, smell, taste, sound, sight, and even feelings. This part of the brain is the primary somatosensory cortex, and it causes signals to be sent around the brain to begin this damage. When researchers stopped the signals from being sent, they were able to flip the social abilities back around and stop the repeat of actions, which are two very important parts of autism.
The study was done in 2010, which showed women who have a serious infection during the first three months of their pregnancy have three times the risk of having a child with autism compared to those who go through pregnancy without an infection at all. Along with that, women who get a serious infections between months 3-6 of pregnancy have about half the same risk of having a child with autism. This study was done over a 25 year period and includes infections like the general flu, the stomach flu, and severe UTI’s.
With that being said, not all women who have infections during pregnancy end up having a child with autism. The researchers have also found cells in the gut, formed by harmless germs, that caused the same loss of social abilities in both mice and humans. When they killed these cells, autism-free children were born. With the progress of new findings, researchers plan to explore if these germs are linked to autism. With more human studies, researchers could find a way to possibly reduce the risk of having a child with autism.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. (2017, September 13). Studies help explain link between autism, severe infection during pregnancy: Bacterial populations in mother's GI tract may play a central role. ScienceDaily. Retrieved September 17, 2017 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170913193144.htm
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Note: Any opinions expressed in these articles are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent those of Dr. Spitzer, the Department of Biological Sciences, or Marshall University.