Antidepressants combined with infection during pregnancy linked to neurodevelopmental changes, UVA study finds
University of Virginia researchers found that SSRIs interacting with maternal inflammation altered the placenta and produced autism-like behaviors in mouse offspring, though they caution against pregnant patients stopping medication on their own.
Antidepressant use during pregnancy, when combined with infection or other sources of inflammation in the mother's body, may heighten the risk of lasting neurodevelopmental changes in offspring, according to a University of Virginia School of Medicine study published December 19, 2022, in the journal Brain, Behavior and Immunity.
The research team, led by John Lukens of UVA's Department of Neuroscience and its Center for Brain Immunology and Glia, found in laboratory mice that commonly used antidepressants known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs, interacted powerfully with maternal inflammation to cause harmful changes in the placenta and the decidua, the tissue forming the direct connection between mother and fetus, according to UVA's own release on the findings.
Those placental changes were associated with behavioral alterations in the offspring resembling autism spectrum symptoms, including reduced social communication, the university reported. Lukens said the findings "might help to explain the rise in autism prevalence over the last 20 years, as this time coincides with the rollout of widespread SSRI usage" — a hypothesis, not a claim that SSRIs alone cause autism, and one drawn from a mouse model rather than from human patients.
What the study did and didn't show
The researchers identified specific inflammatory signatures in the placenta that correlated with neurological changes seen in the adult offspring of mice that experienced an immune challenge during pregnancy, according to UVA, and suggested those signatures could eventually help identify biomarkers or drug targets to reduce neurodevelopmental risk from prenatal stressors. The study was conducted entirely in mice; the university's own release was explicit that further studies, eventually extending to human subjects, are needed before the interaction between SSRIs and inflammation in human pregnancy can be considered established the same way it was observed in the animal model.
The caution attached to the findings
UVA's researchers emphasized that SSRIs remain an important tool for managing depression during pregnancy and explicitly cautioned pregnant patients against stopping the medication on their own without consulting a doctor, given the separate, well-documented risks of untreated depression during pregnancy. The team called for additional research to determine how the drugs may affect mother and child and to better characterize the interaction between SSRIs and inflammation.
US In News compiled this archived account from contemporaneous coverage of the University of Virginia School of Medicine's research release. It restores a story originally published on this site in December 2022; figures are as reported at the time.