Metabolism & Maternal Immune activation

Val's Take/Conjecture

• One of many things making these insights hard to come by beyond the need for advanced technology is that Neuro-Diversity is characterized by DIVERSITY.
• Further, METABOLIC DYSREGULATION is different in different people --- it doesn't necessarily look the same.

Dysregulation of immune and metabolism pathways in maternal immune activation induces an increased risk of autism spectrum disorders (2023)

Key findings: A novel evidence was proved that illustrated altering four immune and metabolism-related risk pathways, including starch and sucrose metabolism, ribosome, protein processing in endoplasmic reticulum, and retrograde endocannabinoid signaling pathway, which were prominent involvement in the process of MIA regulating abnormal fetal brain development to induce an increased risk of ASD.

Here, we have observed that almost all key genes within these risk pathways are significantly differentially expressed at embryonic days (E) 10.5-12.5, which is considered to be the optimal coincidence window of mouse embryonic brain development to study the intimate association between MIA and ASD using mouse animal models.

​​Significance: [The] search establishes that MIA causes dysregulation of immune and metabolic pathways, which leads to abnormal embryonic neurodevelopment, thus promoting development of ASD symptoms in offspring.

Shared genetic architecture and bidirectional clinical risks within the psycho-metabolic nexus (2025)

Interpretation: The study highlights the intertwined genetic and clinical relationships between psychiatric disorders and metabolic dysregulations, emphasizing the need for integrated approaches in diagnosis and treatment.

Molecular and metabolic heterogeneity of astrocytes and microglia (2023)

Abstract

Astrocytes and microglia are central players in a myriad of processes in the healthy and diseased brain, ranging from metabolism to immunity.

​The crosstalk between these two cell types [Astrocytes & Microglia] contributes to pathology in many if not all neuroinflammatory and neurodegenerative diseases.

Recent advancements in integrative multimodal sequencing techniques have begun to highlight how heterogeneous both cell types are and the importance of metabolism to their regulation.

We discuss here the transcriptomic, metabolic, and functional heterogeneity of astrocytes and microglia and highlight their interaction in health and disease.