Cold or flu in pregnancy linked to autism

This is a news story, published by MailOnline, that relates primarily to MIA news.

disease research news

For more disease research news, you can click here:

more disease research news

MailOnline news

For more news from MailOnline, you can click here:

more news from MailOnline

About the Otherweb

Otherweb, Inc is a public benefit corporation, dedicated to improving the quality of news people consume. We are non-partisan, junk-free, and ad-free. We use artificial intelligence (AI) to remove junk from your news feed, and allow you to select the best health news, business news, entertainment news, and much more. If you like disease research news, you might also like this article about

maternal immune activation

. We are dedicated to bringing you the highest-quality news, junk-free and ad-free, about your favorite topics. Please come every day to read the latest autism news, immune system news, disease research news, and other high-quality news about any topic that interests you. We are working hard to create the best news aggregator on the web, and to put you in control of your news feed - whether you choose to read the latest news through our website, our news app, or our daily newsletter - all free!

maternal inflammation

MailOnline

•

Experts discover factor during pregnancy they think causes autism

Summary

Nutrition label

84% Informative

Researchers simulated a viral infection in mice and tracked the fetus' reaction to how the mom's immune system responded to a cold or flu virus, known as maternal immune activation ( MIA ) MIA is activated when the immune system kicks into high gear, increasing the levels of cytokines and chemokines which can cross the placenta and baby's blood-brain barrier.

Female embryos seemed protected from these effects, but one third of male embryos were impacted to some degree.

This aligns with the fact that autism is more prevalent in boys than girls.

VR Score

Informative language

Neutral language

Article tone

informal

Language

English

Language complexity

Offensive language

possibly offensive