O2.6. A TWO-YEAR LONGITUDINAL EVALUATION OF DIFFUSION MEASURES OF EXTRACELLULAR FREE WATER IN A NON-HUMAN PRIMATE MODEL OF MATERNAL IMMUNE ACTIVATION – EXPLORING NEUROIMMUNE MECHANISMS OF PSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS

摘要

Evidence has been accumulating for an immune-based component of psychiatric disorder etiology, particularly schizophrenia. One of the first indications of such a link comes from early epidemiological studies, which found an increased incidence of schizophrenia in offspring of mothers who had an infection during pregnancy. Recent work has identified genetic links to the major histocompatibility complex, pro-inflammatory cytokine elevations, as well as mixed evidence of microglial activation. While these findings provide strong evidence of an immune component, human studies are inherently limited by the heterogeneity of the sample and inability to make strong inferences about causality. Consequently, we have developed a non-human primate (NHP) model of maternal immune activation (MIA) using a modified form of the viral mimic polyIC (polyICLC) to test the hypothesis that maternal immune response contributes to changes in the developing brain and behavior of NHP offspring. Specifically, this study examines the effect of MIA on a promising biomarker of neuroinflammation in vivo--extracellular free water--a diffusion magnetic resonance imaging measure obtained with a multi-shell acquisition. We sought to test the hypothesis that offspring of pregnant monkeys who received polyICLC injections would show increased extracellular free water compared to control offspring.