A team of researchers at John Hopkins University (click here) have found, in a
study conducted on mice, that if a mother’s immune system goes into
‘overdrive’ during pregnancy due to exposure to a serious infection or
other disease, the children may experience brain abnormalities that last
through to adulthood. The mice in the study showed that males were more
susceptible to this effect than females, and had smaller hippocampuses
and fewer nerve cells in their brains than they should after prenatal
exposure to high immune responses. Worryingly, their brains also
contained a kind of immune cell which would not normally be there.
The study simulated exposure to an infection that would cause an immune response from the pregnant mice, and then analysed the effects of this on the baby mice that resulted. The team studied these mice and their brains into adulthood, and found that the abnormalities caused in the male mice lasted throughout their lives.
These findings lead the scientists studying this effect to believe the same may occur in humans, and that this could be a cause of some conditions like autism and schizophrenia, which are already thought to have neurobiological roots. These conditions are both significantly more likely to occur in males, which also suggests that the cause could be the immune system activity of their mothers during pregnancy, as this was seen to affect male mice more. More research will need to be done to see if humans indeed are subject to the same effect as mice.
I wonder if the difference between male and female is a link to hormones in the formation of the antibody and/or the myelin. It just seems to me it is hormone related. "Sex-linked" usually is genetic.
This isn't exactly hormone related at all. It is gender related and in utero development. It may be that the increased immune response effects more cells in the males over females. The spinal cord is more myelin dense. The above research doesn't examine the spinal cord.
The fornix leads into the hippocampus. Just a guess. Mary Temple Grandin (click here) has stated visual/spatial thinking/learning to be an origin for delayed speech in people with autism.
Mirela Cerghet, Robert P. Skoff, Denise Bessert, Zhan Zhang, Chadwick Mullins and M. Said Ghandour
Sexual dimorphism of neurons and astrocytes (click here) has been demonstrated in different centers of the brain, but sexual dimorphism
of oligodendrocytes and myelin has not been examined. We show, using immunocytochemistry and in situ hybridization, that the density of oligodendrocytes in corpus callosum, fornix, and spinal cord is 20–40% greater in males
compared with females....
...Hippocampal neurons in males have a larger dendritic tree than females (Barrera et al., 2001). This structure, under the influence of sex hormones (Roof, 1993), has been postulated to play a role in spatial learning...
The study simulated exposure to an infection that would cause an immune response from the pregnant mice, and then analysed the effects of this on the baby mice that resulted. The team studied these mice and their brains into adulthood, and found that the abnormalities caused in the male mice lasted throughout their lives.
These findings lead the scientists studying this effect to believe the same may occur in humans, and that this could be a cause of some conditions like autism and schizophrenia, which are already thought to have neurobiological roots. These conditions are both significantly more likely to occur in males, which also suggests that the cause could be the immune system activity of their mothers during pregnancy, as this was seen to affect male mice more. More research will need to be done to see if humans indeed are subject to the same effect as mice.
I wonder if the difference between male and female is a link to hormones in the formation of the antibody and/or the myelin. It just seems to me it is hormone related. "Sex-linked" usually is genetic.
This isn't exactly hormone related at all. It is gender related and in utero development. It may be that the increased immune response effects more cells in the males over females. The spinal cord is more myelin dense. The above research doesn't examine the spinal cord.
The fornix leads into the hippocampus. Just a guess. Mary Temple Grandin (click here) has stated visual/spatial thinking/learning to be an origin for delayed speech in people with autism.
Mirela Cerghet, Robert P. Skoff, Denise Bessert, Zhan Zhang, Chadwick Mullins and M. Said Ghandour
26(5):
1439-1447
doi:
10.1523
JNEUROSCI.
2219-05.2006
...Hippocampal neurons in males have a larger dendritic tree than females (Barrera et al., 2001). This structure, under the influence of sex hormones (Roof, 1993), has been postulated to play a role in spatial learning...
