Many people with autism spectrum disorders also experience unusual gastrointestinal inflammation, but thus far scientists have not established whether and how those conditions might be linked.
Now, Harvard Medical School and MIT researchers, working with mouse models, may have found the missing link: Infections during pregnancy can lead to high levels of the inflammatory signaling molecule interleukin-17a (IL-17a), which can not only affect brain development in the fetus, but also alter the maternal microbiome in a way that primes the newborn’s immune system for future inflammatory attacks.
