ArticleBrain, behavior, and immunity2026
Maternal infection - but not inflammation - is associated with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms during childhood: a population-based cohort study.
Article in Brain, behavior, and immunity, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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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.
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Who cites it
1 citing paper in PubMed.
- Maternal immune activation in mice recapitulates features of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in susceptible offspring.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2026Article
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10 authors.
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Abstract
backgroundStudies are equivocal on whether prenatal exposure to infection and inflammation is linked to higher risk of attention-deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) in the offspring. The current study investigated the relationship between prenatal exposure to maternal cytokines, C-reactive protein (CRP), fever and the risk of ADHD in childhood and early adolescence in the general pediatric population.
methodData came from 6,555 mother-child pairs enrolled in Generation R, a Dutch prospective population-based cohort. The primary predictors were 1) self-reported fever and/or infections in each trimester; 2) a composite cytokine index of IL-1β, IL-6, IL-17a, IL-23, and IFN-γ and 3) CRP. The primary outcome was ADHD symptoms measured using the Child Behavioral Checklist (parent-reported) and Teacher Report Form (teacher-reported), obtained at three time points (ages 6, 10 and 14 years). Linear mixed models were used to estimate overall associations, adjusted for maternal factors (i.e., education, national origin, age, current psychopathology, psychosocial stress, smoking, pre-pregnancy BMI, parity) and child factors (i.e., age, sex, polygenic score for neurodevelopmental disorders). We also investigated if the associations were moderated by 1) the child's polygenic score for neurodevelopmental disorders and 2) maternal stress during the pregnancy.
resultsWe found a small, but significant association between fever and ADHD symptoms (ß=0.06 [95 %CI = 0.01, 0.11]). No significant association was found between the cytokine composite index, individual cytokines, or CRP and ADHD symptoms. No interactions were detected for any of the exposures with a polygenic score for neurodevelopmental disorders (all interactions p-values > 0.198) or maternal stress (all p-values > 0.403).
conclusionsOur findings suggest that maternal fever and infections during pregnancy are linked to offspring ADHD symptomatology. The standardized effect size was smaller than that of other reported perinatal risk factors for ADHD. Cytokine levels and CRP as markers for chronic inflammation were not associated with ADHD.
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