Quick Summary
- Grant renews funding for 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis Conte Center for five years
- Conte Center is exploring how infections in pregnancy lead to disorders in offspring
Discovering how infections during pregnancy, such as COVID-19 and influenza, can lead to psychiatric illness and developmental disorders in offspring years later, and how to detect, prevent or treat these disorders, is the subject of a $15.7 million grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to the Conte Center at the University of California, Davis.
The 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis Conte Center, organized through the Center for Neuroscience, was originally established with an NIH grant in 2016. This grant renews the center鈥檚 funding for another five years.
鈥溞掳拿帕喜誓谀恍畔 Davis is in the upper echelon of translational mental health research,鈥 said co-principal investigator Cameron Carter, C. Bryan Cameron Presidential Chair in the Center for Neuroscience and distinguished professor of psychiatry and psychology in the School of Medicine. 鈥淭he establishment of a 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis Conte Center in 2016 was an incredible accomplishment, and to renew it in 2021 is an even bigger accomplishment.鈥
Building on promising findings from the initial grant, the renewed funding will allow investigators to discover biomarkers for at-risk pregnancies and new treatments to prevent the detrimental effects of maternal infection on brain development in offspring.
鈥淭he team at the 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis Conte Center is helping us understand the origins of significant mental health disorders,鈥 said Mark Winey, dean of the College of Biological Sciences. 鈥淎nd their research will have far-reaching impacts and provide foundational understandings for how we approach mental health for current and future generations.鈥
Psychiatric illnesses and neurodevelopmental disorders, including schizophrenia, affect 15-20 percent of people worldwide, yet current treatments are at best only partially effective.
鈥淭he rates of schizophrenia and autism have dramatically increased following pandemics in the past, and we are deeply concerned about a similar impending wave of psychiatric illness following the current COVID-19 pandemic,鈥 said co-principal investigator Kimberley McAllister, director of the Center for Neuroscience and a professor in the Department of Neurology, School of Medicine; and Department of Neurobiology, Physiology and Behavior, College of Biological Sciences. 鈥淣ewly funded projects in our center will reveal approaches to mitigate disease in offspring and even to prevent it in future pregnancies.鈥
Origin of mental illness
When an expectant mother is exposed to a pathogen, such as a virus or bacterial infection, her body鈥檚 immune response can in some cases trigger neurodevelopmental changes in her offspring. The initial Conte Center grant enabled an interdisciplinary team of researchers to discover that this immune response can result in offspring with changes in brain development and behavior that show up surprisingly early after birth, and that are similar in species as disparate as mice and monkeys.
The changes in brain development and behavior seen in animal models are comparable to changes seen in human neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders like schizophrenia and autism.
Most pregnancies, however, are resilient to these risks. The question is how to determine which pregnancies are at risk, and why.
鈥淏ecause many of these diseases start very early in development, often prenatally, we are especially interested in understanding how the immune response of the mother during pregnancy alters brain health in her offspring,鈥 McAllister said.
The future of mental health
Once these mechanisms are understood, scientists may be able to create novel therapies, treatments and interventions optimized for the developmental age and sex of at-risk offspring following maternal infection, as well as approaches to prevent the effects during at-risk pregnancies.
The purpose of the National Institute of Mental Health鈥檚 Silvio O. Conte Centers program is to support interdisciplinary teams of researchers addressing high-risk, high-impact questions that will advance our understanding of mental disorders and their treatments. The Conte Center award recognizes the strength of interdisciplinary research at 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis, and its researchers together represent a diverse coalition of experts from multiple departments and centers across 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis, including the Center for Neuroscience, MIND Institute, Center for Mind and Brain, California National Primate Research Center, College of Biological Sciences, School of Medicine, College of Letters and Science, and College of Engineering.
鈥淭he Conte Center鈥檚 NIMH grant renewal is a testament to the groundbreaking, interdisciplinary research that 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis School of Medicine and our main campus partners are conducting,鈥 said Allison Brashear, dean of the School of Medicine. 鈥淚t is truly impressive to see how 新澳门六合彩内幕信息 Davis is bringing together its world-class leaders in neurology, psychiatry, behavioral health and biological sciences, among others, to improve the health of current and future generations.鈥
Media Resources
Media Contact:
- Andy Fell, News and Media Relations, 530-304-8888, ahfell@ucdavis.edu
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