Intrauterine exposure to SARS-CoV-2 infection and early newborn brain development

• Published in: Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. 1991) N.Y. 1991), 2024-01, Vol.34 (2)
• Main Authors: Andescavage, Nickie, Lu, Yuan-Chiao, Wu, Yao, Kapse, Kushal, Keller, Jennifer, Von Kohorn, Isabelle, Afifi, Ashraf, Vezina, Gilbert, Henderson, Deidtra, Wessel, David L, du Plessis, Adre J, Limperopoulos, Catherine
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Brain - diagnostic imaging; COVID-19; Female; Gray Matter; Humans; Infant; Infant, Newborn; Mothers; Pregnancy; SARS-CoV-2
• ISSN: 1047-3211; 1460-2199
• DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhae041

Abstract Epidemiologic studies suggest that prenatal exposures to certain viruses may influence early neurodevelopment, predisposing offspring to neuropsychiatric conditions later in life. The long-term effects of maternal COVID-19 infection in pregnancy on early brain development, however, remain largely unknown. We prospectively enrolled infants in an observational cohort study for a single-site study in the Washington, DC Metropolitan Area from June 2020 to November 2021 and compared these infants to pre-pandemic controls (studied March 2014–February 2020). The primary outcomes are measures of cortical morphometry (tissue-specific volumes), along with global and regional measures of local gyrification index, and sulcal depth. We studied 210 infants (55 infants of COVID-19 unexposed mothers, 47 infants of COVID-19-positive mothers, and 108 pre-pandemic healthy controls). We found increased cortical gray matter volume (182.45 ± 4.81 vs. 167.29 ± 2.92) and accelerated sulcal depth of the frontal lobe (5.01 ± 0.19 vs. 4.40 ± 0.13) in infants of COVID-19-positive mothers compared to controls. We found additional differences in infants of COVID-19 unexposed mothers, suggesting both maternal viral exposures, as well as non-viral stressors associated with the pandemic, may influence early development and warrant ongoing follow-up.