Signals of inflammation during pregnancy linked to aging and memory changes 50 years later

An estimated 13.8 million people in the U.S.

will have Alzheimer's disease (AD) by 2050, two thirds of whom are projected to be women. The brain circuitry underlying memory is widely known to differ based on biological sex, but sex-based drivers of aging and AD are still unclear. A study by investigators from Mass General Brigham analyzed data from participants who have been followed for over 50 years, starting before their births.

Researchers found that maternal immune activity during a critical period of sex-dependent brain development in pregnancy affected the offspring's long-term memory circuitry and function in childhood and midlife, with different patterns for males and females. Findings are published in Molecular Psychiatry in a paper titled "Prenatal immune origins of brain aging differ by sex." "Brain aging is also about brain development, and understanding sex differences in brain development is critical to understanding sex differences in the aging brain," said corresponding author Jill M.

Goldstein, Ph.D., MPH, founder and executive director of the Innovation Center on Sex Differences in Medicine of Massachusetts General Hospital, and Professor of Psychiatry and Medicine at Harvard Medical School.

"This paper is a first step toward looking at the fetal origins of Alzheimer's disease, which, like many chronic diseases, develops across the lifespan and is influenced by early development in a way we might not ordinarily consider." This study was based on findings fr.