Pregnant women with higher levels of inflammatory cytokines and chemokines, proteins that control communication between cells of the immune system, may be at significantly greater risk of having a child with autism combined with intellectual disability, researchers have found.
The research also suggests a potential immune profile for the differentiation of autism combined with intellectual disability, as distinct from either autism or developmental disability alone.
“Inflammation during the second trimester in the mothers of children with autism who also have intellectual disability was significantly greater than in mothers of children autism without intellectual disability in our study,” said Judy Van de Water, professor of Internal Medicine in the Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Clinical Immunology and a researcher affiliated with the UC Davis MIND Institute.
Autism with intellectual disability linked to mother’s immune dysfunction during pregnancy
