Maternal inflammation is hard for offspring to stomach

Summary

Individuals with neurodevelopmental disorders often experience comorbid gastrointestinal distress and dysregulated immune responses, yet the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. In this issue of Immunity, Kim et al. utilize a murine maternal immune activation model of autism and find that inflammation can alter the microbiota of mothers, which postnatally primes offspring CD4⁺ T cells and increases susceptibility to intestinal inflammation.