Social impairments in autism spectrum disorder are related to maternal immune history profile.
Mol Psychiatry
; 23(8): 1794-1797, 2018 08.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-28993711
ABSTRACT
Maternal immune activation has been highlighted as a factor that might increase the risk and severity of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children. Preclinical animal evidence shows that immune activation in mothers during pregnancy causes ASD-like behavioural traits in offspring. To this point, there has been no investigation of whether immune system activation in human mothers during pregnancy is associated with more severe symptoms in children with ASD. In this study, data from an existing ASD cohort (N=220) were analysed to investigate whether immune conditions in the mother were associated with greater severity of autism-related symptoms. Results showed that children whose mothers reported a history of immune activation (allergies and asthma) had significantly higher scores on the Social Responsiveness Scale (SRS; P=0.016), suggesting more severe social impairment symptoms in these children. This increasing severity of social impairment symptoms was further shown on the SRS cognition (P=0.007) and mannerisms (P=0.002) subscales. While immune history was associated with an increase in the severity of social impairment symptoms, history of autoimmune conditions in the mother did not have any effect in this cohort. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to show an association between immune activation history in the mother and increased ASD symptom severity in children with ASD. These findings support the idea of an immune system-mediated subtype in ASD, where the immune history of the mother may be an important factor.
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Social Behavior
/
Autism Spectrum Disorder
/
Hypersensitivity
Type of study:
Etiology_studies
/
Incidence_studies
/
Observational_studies
/
Risk_factors_studies
Aspects:
Determinantes_sociais_saude
Limits:
Adult
/
Child
/
Female
/
Humans
/
Male
/
Pregnancy
Language:
En
Journal:
Mol Psychiatry
Journal subject:
BIOLOGIA MOLECULAR
/
PSIQUIATRIA
Year:
2018
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Australia
Publication country:
ENGLAND
/
ESCOCIA
/
GB
/
GREAT BRITAIN
/
INGLATERRA
/
REINO UNIDO
/
SCOTLAND
/
UK
/
UNITED KINGDOM