Oct 15, 2010 07:02 GMT  ·  By
Picture of Daniel Kaufman, a professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine
   Picture of Daniel Kaufman, a professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine

Investigators conducting research on unsuspecting lab mice have demonstrated that fetal neurons exposed to elevated concentrations of a normal immune protein tend to lead to abnormal developments in the brain of adult rodents.

The study, which was conducted by researchers at the University of California in Los Angeles (UCLA), was published in the October 14 online issue of the esteemed Journal of Neuroimmunology.

The team behind the new work seems to believe that this type of investigations may in the near future lead to a better understanding of neurological disorders in humans, including schizophrenia and autism.

Experts at UCLA focused their work on studying major histocompatibility complex (MHC), a protein that has a double function in the human body.

On one hand, it is used by the immune system to identify cells that are infected with various pathogens, but then it's also used in the brain to facilitate the formation of new connections between nerve cells called neurons.

“When neurons sense infection or damage to the brain, they produce more MHC. We wanted to explore whether higher levels of MHC affect how the brain develops,” says expert Daniel Kaufman.

He holds an appointment as a professor of molecular and medical pharmacology at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine.

In the research, Kaufman and his team investigated closely transgenic lab mice that had been genetically altered to have neurons that produced larger amounts of MHC.

The scientist then investigated an area of the brain that was involved in vision, and another that played a role in learning and memory. Readings obtained here were then compared to similar data collected from healthy animals.

“The mice whose neurons produced extra MHC showed subtle changes in the connections between those neurons and other neurons in both brain regions,” Kaufman explains, saying that this is precisely what the team estimated to find.

“Infections in pregnant women have been associated with slightly higher risks for schizophrenia and autism in their children. Subtle changes in brain development due to excess MHC may explain this relationship,” the scientist adds.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS), a part of the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), funded the new investigation.

UCLA experts Zhongqi-Phyllis Wu, Lorraine Washburn, Tina Bilousova, Maia Boudzinskaia, Nathalie Escande-Beillard, Jyes Querubin, Hoa Dang, Cui-Wei Xie and Jide Tian were coauthors of the study.