Discover Mental Health · 6 authors, 3 centres
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This narrative review synthesizes preclinical MIA rodent studies and concludes that maternal immune activation during pregnancy disrupts both fetal neurodevelopment and maternal postpartum brain function, potentially creating a double-hit mechanism that elevates offspring vulnerability to neurodevelopmental disorders.
This narrative review examines how the maternal immune activation (MIA) model in rodents elucidates the interaction between prenatal and postnatal environments in shaping offspring brain and behavior. The authors describe that MIA during gestation disrupts fetal neurodevelopment while simultaneously affecting maternal brain function and postpartum caregiving behavior, which may constitute a second hit on already vulnerable offspring. The review highlights that MIA outcomes are modulated by factors including immune stimulation type and intensity, gestational timing, maternal nutrition, microbiome, and stress exposure. These variables contribute to phenotype heterogeneity across studies, which the authors argue enhances rather than weakens translational relevance. Limitations include the reliance on preclinical rodent data and unresolved questions about translating gestational timelines to human contexts.
