Lower neonatal brain volumes following prenatal exposure to maternal COVID
Poster No:
403
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Julie Sigurdardottir1, Dafnis Batalle1, Ayesha Javed1, Molly Eddison1, Mary Rutherford1, Deena Gibbons1, Katie Doores1, Lucilla Poston1, A. Edwards1, Grainne McAlonan1
Institutions:
1King's College London, London, United Kingdom
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Epidemiological and animals studies indicate that maternal immune activation (MIA) during pregnancy may alter fetal brain development and increase the likelihood of psychiatric and neurodevelopmental difficulties in the offspring. The advent of COVID provided an opportunity and responsibility to directly examine the potential effect of prenatal exposure to maternal COVID infection on fetal brain development. In this preliminary prospective study, we examined brain regions previously implicated in psychiatric and neurodevelopmental conditions in neonates likely and unlikely to have been exposed in utero.
Methods:
METHOD:A UK sample of n=145 neonates (75 males) from the Brain Imaging in Babies Study born at mean(sd) 39.4(1.7) postmenstrual weeks of age and with no known family history of neuropsychiatric conditions, were scanned on a 3T MRI scan at mean(sd) 41.4 (2.1) weeks. Of those, 88 developed in utero during the COVID pandemic. From T2-weighted brain imaging data, volumes were calculated using the automated segmentation pipeline of the developing Human Connectome Project for the bilateral amygdala, hippocampus, caudate, insula, thalami, lentiform, cerebellum and for frontal lobe and anterior temporal lobe grey and white-matter [GM,WM] and total brain volume (TBV). Blood samples from mother and child were obtained at scan from the pandemic cohort. Prenatal exposure to maternal SARS-CoV-2 was defined as: positive Nucleocapsid-antibody response (>4 fold change above background) in either individual and/or a positive spike-antibody response if sampled prior to the vaccination roll-out. Multivariate multiple regressions were used to assess the effect of exposure on brain volumes, adjusted for sex and age at scan and age at birth.
Results:
RESULTS: Likely COVID-MIA exposure was determined in 33 of the 145 neonates (37.5% of the pandemic cohort). Exposure was associated with lower TBV, total cortical GM, right anterior temporal GM, left amygdala and left thalamus (p-uncorrected <0.05). Excluding neonates born preterm <37 weeks attenuated the effect on the left thalamus only.
·Figure1.Boxplots of Residuals
Conclusions:
CONCLUSIONS: Fetal brain development was altered in children exposed to COVID-MIA, specifically volumes in areas involved in neurodevelopmental psychiatric conditions and cortical GM were lower in those likely exposed. However, we emphasize that we cannot entirely exclude the effect of other important maternal and environmental factors (including antenatal stress). We also do not yet know if these brain alterations are functionally and clinically relevant and this is the focus of on-going study.
Disorders of the Nervous System:
Neurodevelopmental/ Early Life (eg. ADHD, autism) 1
Psychiatric (eg. Depression, Anxiety, Schizophrenia)
Lifespan Development:
Early life, Adolescence, Aging
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Segmentation and Parcellation
Neuroanatomy, Physiology, Metabolism and Neurotransmission:
Cortical Anatomy and Brain Mapping 2
Keywords:
Affective Disorders
Autism
Development
Limbic Systems
Neurological
Psychiatric Disorders
Segmentation
Other - Infection, immunology
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
Provide references using author date format
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