FLU IN PREGNANCY ENDANGERS FETUS.Byline: ELISE ELISe Electron-Ion Scattering in a Storage Ring (Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research) ELISE Enabling Library Information Skills for Everyone ELISE European Network for the Exchange of Information on Local Initiatives for the Creation of Employment KLEEMAN Staff Writer PASADENA -- Pregnant women who contract the flu are more likely to bear a child with a serious mental illness or autism autism (ô`tĭzəm), developmental disability resulting from a neurological disorder that affects the normal functioning of the brain. It is characterized by the abnormal development of communication skills, social skills, and reasoning. , according to according to prep. 1. As stated or indicated by; on the authority of: according to historians. 2. In keeping with: according to instructions. 3. a study released Tuesday by a team of Caltech biologists. Working with mice that carry the genes for a schizophrenia-like condition, researchers found that animals that became ill during their pregnancy were more likely to pass along the disorder to their babies. Moreover, the abnormality was not present in mice born to mothers whose immune response immune response n. An integrated bodily response to an antigen, especially one mediated by lymphocytes and involving recognition of antigens by specific antibodies or previously sensitized lymphocytes. to the flu had been blocked. "The work is extremely solid and very interesting," Dan Geschwind, a UCLA UCLA University of California at Los Angeles UCLA University Center for Learning Assistance (Illinois State University) UCLA University of Carrollton, TX and Lower Addison, TX neurogeneticist, said of the work by the Caltech team. "There are some things that are very unexpected." The Caltech researchers determined that the abnormality was caused by the presence of interleukin-6, a protein triggered during an immune response. "If you block the protein IL-6, you completely normalize normalize to convert a set of data by, for example, converting them to logarithms or reciprocals so that their previous non-normal distribution is converted to a normal one. the behaviors of the offspring," Caltech biologist Paul Patterson said. "On the converse experiment, if you just inject IL-6 into the mother, that will give rise to offspring with abnormal behaviors." Finding the link between the pregnant mouse's immune response and her offspring's mental health is the first step in understanding whether there could be a similar connection in humans, Geschwind said. elise.kleeman(at)sgvn.com (626) 578-6300, Ext. 4451 |
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