ArticleFrontiers in molecular neuroscience2018
Prenatal Immune Challenge in Mice Leads to Partly Sex-Dependent Behavioral, Microglial, and Molecular Abnormalities Associated with Schizophrenia.
Article in Frontiers in molecular neuroscience, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 84 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
84 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 160 citations in OpenAlex.
- Chemokine Dysregulation and Neuroinflammation in Schizophrenia: A Systematic Review.International journal of molecular sciences · 2023Pooled it
- Prenatal and Lactation Exposure to Bisphenol A (BPA) at the Global Mean Daily Intake Level Leads to Sex-Dependent Changes in Microglial State, Gene Expression, and Behavioral Patterns in Newborn and Juvenile Wistar Rat Offspring.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Prenatal Stress Induced by Maternal Immune Activation Disrupts GABAergic Inhibition and Mossy Fiber Plasticity in the Rat Dentate Gyrus-CA3 Circuit.Hippocampus · 2026Article
- Placental and juvenile immune responses to maternal immune activation are differentially regulated by sex chromosomes and gonads across gestation.Journal of neuroinflammation · 2026Article
- Microglial response to sleep deprivation depends on the hippocampal region and paradigm used in adult male mice.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2026Article
- A "personality test" for rats reveals subtle but distinct effects of sex and early life inflammation on brain and behavior.Behavioral neuroscience · 2026Article
- THC and CBD differentially modulated gut microbiota in the Poly I:C rat model of schizophrenia.Frontiers in pharmacology · 2026Article
- Early micro- and nanoscale microglial responses to blood-brain barrier modulation by transcranial focused ultrasound.Theranostics · 2026Article
- Vagus nerve stimulation as an anti-inflammatory therapy for maternal immune activation-induced alterations in offspring microglia and neurodevelopment.Frontiers in neuroscience · 2026Review
- Autism-like phenotype across the lifespan of Shank3B-mutant mice of both sexes.Journal of neurodevelopmental disorders · 2025Article
- Fundamental Neurochemistry Review: Lipids across microglial states.Journal of neurochemistry · 2025Review
- Poly (I:C)-induced maternal immune activation generates impairment of reversal learning performance in offspring.Journal of neurochemistry · 2025Article
- Microglia heterogeneity during neuroinflammation and neurodegeneration in the mouse retina.Brain structure & function · 2024Article
- Microglial over-pruning of synapses during development in autism-associated SCN2A-deficient mice and human cerebral organoids.Molecular psychiatry · 2024Article
- From Immunity to Neurogenesis: Toll-like Receptors as Versatile Regulators in the Nervous System.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- Microglia heterogeneity in health and disease.FEBS open bio · 2024Review
- Metabolic Control of Microglia.Advances in neurobiology · 2024Review
- Molecular mapping of a core transcriptional signature of microglia-specific genes in schizophrenia.Translational psychiatry · 2023Article
- Microglia/macrophages are ultrastructurally altered by their proximity to spinal cord injury in adult female mice.Journal of neuroinflammation · 2023Article
- Microglial over-pruning of synapses during development in autism-associated SCN2A-deficient mice and human cerebral organoids.Research square · 2023Article
24 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
8 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Epidemiological studies revealed that environmental factors comprising prenatal infection are strongly linked to risk for later development of neuropsychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia. Considering strong sex differences in schizophrenia and its increased prevalence in males, we designed a methodological approach to investigate possible sex differences in pathophysiological mechanisms. Prenatal immune challenge was modeled by systemic administration of the viral mimic polyinosinic-polycytidylic acid (Poly I:C) to C57BL/6 mice at embryonic day 9.5. The consequences on behavior, gene expression, and microglia-brain immune cells that are critical for normal development-were characterized in male vs. female offspring at adulthood. The cerebral cortex, hippocampus, and cerebellum, regions where structural and functional alterations were mainly described in schizophrenia patients, were selected for cellular and molecular analyses. Confocal and electron microscopy revealed most pronounced differences in microglial distribution, arborization, cellular stress, and synaptic interactions in the hippocampus of male vs. female offspring exposed to Poly I:C. Sex differences in microglia were also measured under both steady-state and Poly I:C conditions. These microglial alterations were accompanied by behavioral impairment, affecting for instance sensorimotor gating, in males. Consistent with these results, increased expression of genes related to inflammation was measured in cerebral cortex and hippocampus of males challenged with Poly I:C. Overall, these findings suggest that schizophrenia's higher incidence in males might be associated, among other mechanisms, with an increased microglial reactivity to prenatal immune challenges, hence determining disease outcomes into adulthood.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.