Spring Break
Maternal antibodies increase autistic behavior
Issue date: 4/30/09
When you think of "tolerating" a baby, images of enduring sleepless nights, changing diapers and wiping mashed sweet potatoes off the ceiling usually come to mind. However, when a woman becomes pregnant, the idea of fetus toleration is taken to a whole new level. Our immune systems are designed so that our bodies produce antibodies that attack anything that is foreign, such as bacteria, viruses or tissues.
But for most expecting mothers, the fetus, which is indeed foreign because of the presence of the father's DNA, is not rejected. The mother's immune system compensates so that the fetus is not attacked by antibodies and can be carried to term.
Unfortunately, sometimes this fetus-protection immune response goes awry. Hopkins researchers previously found antibodies that target the brain tissue of fetuses in mothers of children with autism.
Autism is a neurological disorder characterized by impaired social interactions, difficulties communicating with others and unusual or repetitive behaviors, the direct causes of which are still unknown.
This finding has caused this same team, led by Harvey Singer, director of Pediatric Neurology, to test a promising but not entirely well-evidenced theory: Certain antibodies, which are passed from mother to child across the placental wall, attack the fetus's brain itself, and may lend a hand in the development of autism.
In a paper appearing in this month's issue of the Journal of Neuroimmunology, Singer and his colleagues determined that these autism-positive antibodies are sufficient to produce at least some of autism's characteristic behavioral patterns in induced-autism mouse models.
When injected with antibodies from mothers with autistic children, expectant mouse mothers had pups that exhibited increased levels of anxious behavior, hyperactivity, increased ease by which the animal could be startled by loud noises and decreased sociability.
On the other hand, for expectant moms that were not injected with antibodies, or that were injected with antibodies from mothers without autistic children, the mouse pups behaved much more normally compared to the experimental group.
But for most expecting mothers, the fetus, which is indeed foreign because of the presence of the father's DNA, is not rejected. The mother's immune system compensates so that the fetus is not attacked by antibodies and can be carried to term.
Unfortunately, sometimes this fetus-protection immune response goes awry. Hopkins researchers previously found antibodies that target the brain tissue of fetuses in mothers of children with autism.
Autism is a neurological disorder characterized by impaired social interactions, difficulties communicating with others and unusual or repetitive behaviors, the direct causes of which are still unknown.
This finding has caused this same team, led by Harvey Singer, director of Pediatric Neurology, to test a promising but not entirely well-evidenced theory: Certain antibodies, which are passed from mother to child across the placental wall, attack the fetus's brain itself, and may lend a hand in the development of autism.
In a paper appearing in this month's issue of the Journal of Neuroimmunology, Singer and his colleagues determined that these autism-positive antibodies are sufficient to produce at least some of autism's characteristic behavioral patterns in induced-autism mouse models.
When injected with antibodies from mothers with autistic children, expectant mouse mothers had pups that exhibited increased levels of anxious behavior, hyperactivity, increased ease by which the animal could be startled by loud noises and decreased sociability.
On the other hand, for expectant moms that were not injected with antibodies, or that were injected with antibodies from mothers without autistic children, the mouse pups behaved much more normally compared to the experimental group.
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