Instituto de Fisiología, Biología Molecular y Neurociencias, CONICET-UBA, C1428EHA Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Mol Cell Neurosci. 2013 Mar;53:69-76. doi: 10.1016/j.mcn.2012.10.003. Epub 2012 Oct 13.
Recent reports have given a central role to environmental factors in the etiology of autism spectrum disorders (ASD). However, most proposed perinatal factors seem to converge into the activation of the immune system, suggesting that an early inflammatory response could be a unifying factor in the etiology ASD. Here I review the evidence of early immune activation in individuals with ASD, and the chronic peripheral and central alterations observed in the inflammatory response in ASD. This evidence shows that ASD is associated with altered neuroinflammatory processes and abnormal immune responses in adulthood. How these immune alterations can affect developmental programming of adult behavior or directly affect behavior later in life is discussed in the context of both clinical and animal models of research. Recent studies in rodents clearly support a role of elevated cytokines in the behavioral symptoms of ASD, both during development and in adulthood. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled 'Neuroinflammation in neurodegeneration and neurodysfunction'.
最近的报告在自闭症谱系障碍（ASD）的病因学中强调了环境因素的核心作用。然而，大多数提出的围产期因素似乎都集中在免疫系统的激活上，这表明早期炎症反应可能是 ASD 病因学中的一个统一因素。在这里，我回顾了 ASD 患者早期免疫激活的证据，以及 ASD 中炎症反应中观察到的慢性外周和中枢改变。这一证据表明，ASD 与成年期神经炎症过程的改变和异常免疫反应有关。在临床和动物研究模型的背景下，讨论了这些免疫改变如何影响成年行为的发育编程，或者如何直接影响以后的行为。最近在啮齿动物中的研究清楚地支持了细胞因子升高在 ASD 的行为症状中的作用，无论是在发育过程中还是在成年期。本文是题为“神经退行性变和神经功能障碍中的神经炎症”的特刊的一部分。
