Maternal infection during pregnancy increases the risk for psychiatric disorders in the child, but the path between the two is something of a mystery. In a study published in Biological Psychiatry , senior author Professor Urs Meyer of the University of Zurich-Vetsuisse in Zurich, Switzerland and colleagues use a mouse model to show that activation of the mother’s immune system may cause long-term alterations in the programming of the offspring’s genome, known as epigenetic modifications, which lead to behavioral abnormalities in adulthood.

Maternal infection during pregnancy increases the risk for psychiatric disorders in the child, but the path between the two is something of a mystery. In a study published in Biological Psychiatry , senior author Professor Urs Meyer of the University of Zurich-Vetsuisse in Zurich, Switzerland and colleagues use a mouse model to show that activation of the mother’s immune system may cause long-term alterations in the programming of the offspring’s genome, known as epigenetic modifications, which lead to behavioral abnormalities in adulthood.