Cited by 282Tryptophan and brain disordersMaternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and PostpartumNeonatal and fetal brain pathology

Maternal Systemic Interleukin-6 During Pregnancy Is Associated With Newborn Amygdala Phenotypes and Subsequent Behavior at 2 Years of Age

Open access
Graham, Alice M., Rasmussen, Jerod M., Rudolph, Marc D., Heim, Christine M., Gilmore, John H., Styner, Martin, Potkin, Steven G., Entringer, Sonja +3 more·2018·Biological Psychiatry

Abstract

Background Maternal inflammation during pregnancy increases the risk for offspring psychiatric disorders and other adverse long-term health outcomes. The influence of inflammation on the developing fetal brain is hypothesized as one potential mechanism but has not been examined in humans.Methods Participants were adult women (N = 86) who were recruited during early pregnancy and whose offspring were born after 34 weeks' gestation. A biological indicator of maternal inflammation (interleukin-6) that has been shown to influence fetal brain development in animal models was quantified serially in early, mid-, and late pregnancy. Structural and functional brain magnetic resonance imaging scans were acquired in neonates shortly after birth. Infants' amygdalae were individually segmented for measures of volume and as seeds for resting state functional connectivity. At 24 months of age, children completed a snack delay task to assess impulse control.Results Higher average maternal interleukin-6 concentration during pregnancy was prospectively associated with larger right amygdala volume and stronger bilateral amygdala connectivity to brain regions involved in sensory processing and integration (fusiform, somatosensory cortex, and thalamus), salience detection (anterior insula), and learning and memory (caudate and parahippocampal gyrus). Larger newborn right amygdala volume and stronger left amygdala connectivity were in turn associated with lower impulse control at 24 months of age, and mediated the association between higher maternal interleukin-6 concentrations and lower impulse control.Conclusions These findings provide new evidence in humans linking maternal inflammation during pregnancy with newborn brain and emerging behavioral phenotypes relevant for psychiatric disorders. A better understanding of intrauterine conditions that influence offspring disease susceptibility is warranted to inform targeted early intervention and prevention efforts.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.biopsych.2017.05.027

Cites

156 of 156 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

1 retracted

Flagged first, then by citations

2 of the 158 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Research works printed but not linked: 1

  1. [69]Talairach P Tournoux J 1988 Co-planar Stereotaxic Altas of the Human Brain Stuttgart, Germany Georg Thieme Verlag

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Graham, A. M., Rasmussen, J. M., Rudolph, M. D., Heim, C. M., Gilmore, J. H., Styner, M., Potkin, S. G., Entringer, S., Wadhwa, P. D., Fair, D. A., & Buss, C.
Affiliations
  • Oregon Health & Science University (US)
  • University of California, Irvine (US)
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (US)
Corresponding author
Buss, Claudia
Venue
Biological Psychiatry
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2018-01
Volume
83
Issue
2
Pages
109-119
ISSN
0006-3223 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2694505964
Cited by
282
References
158
Citations by year
2026: 19 · 2025: 25 · 2024: 34 · 2023: 31 · 2022: 37 · 2021: 42 · 2020: 44 · 2019: 24 · 2018: 24 · 2017: 2
FWCI
8.54
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Biological Psychiatry (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (acceptedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
  • eScholarship (California Digital Library) (submittedVersion)
Funders
  • U.S. Public Health Service (R01 HD060628, R01 MH091351, UG3 OD-O23349, F32 MH105283, R00 MH091238, R01 MH096773)
  • Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Biological Psychiatry › Tryptophan and brain disorders
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Neonatal and fetal brain pathology
Keywords
impulse control, prenatal inflammation, fetal brain development, mediation, early childhood behavior
MeSH terms
Adult, Amygdala, Child Behavior, Child, Preschool, Female, Humans, Impulsive Behavior, Infant, Newborn, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Male, Nerve Net, Organ Size, Pregnancy, Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects, Interleukin-6, Young Adult, Functional Neuroimaging

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review