Zika virus (ZIKV) infection in pregnant women has been linked to a neurological disorder in the fetus called microcephaly; and we hypothesize this is due to robust inflammatory response to ZIKV in the fetal brain that precipitates neurological damage. The ongoing experiments in our lab will examine the impact of maternal ZIKV infection on inflammation, microglial activation, and associated neural cell death in the fetal brain using a rat model of ZIKV infection. The immediate goal of these experiments is to determine whether ZIKV activates microglia within the developing fetal brain, and to identify key inflammatory and cellular targets for potential therapeutic interventions for ZIKV associated neurological disorder. Using the data obtained in these experiments, future experiments can also examine the impact of prenatal ZIKV infection on long-term neural, immune, and behavioral outcomes in infected offspring that do not have severe neural deformations.

This project examines how pregnancy impacts the immune system, in particular the immune cells of the brain, microglia. It is well known that the peripheral immune system undergoes significant changes in function throughout pregnancy. However, no one has ever examined whether pregnancy also impacts the immune cells of the brain in a similar manner and how these changes in the brain may impact the risk of depression during pregnancy or the immediate postpartum period.

We are currently funded to examine how neonatal males and females respond to events that challenge the immune system and what the consequences of this immune activation may be on later-life brain and behavior. Are males more vulnerable to immune activation early in development? Does this vulnerability increase the risk of learning disabilities and other developmental disorders, which are more prevalent in boys than in girls?