Treating the newborn brain

Project Manager
Carina Mallard, Professor
E-post: carina.mallard@neuro.gu.se
Tel.: +46 31-786 3498 or +46 705-631004
 

Project group
Xiaoyang Wang, Forskarassistent
Bobbi Fleiss, post doc
Hayde Bolouri, post doc
Sofia Blad, PhD student
Katarina Puglisi, PhD student
Linnea Stridh, PhD student
Ylva Carlsson, PhD student
Wei Wang, PhD student

Clinical collaborators
Henrik Hagberg, Professor
Karin Sävman, Docent

The risk of brain injury in newborn children, leading to neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy, increases dramatically if infants are born too early, so called preterm infants. At the same time the risk of preterm birth is strongly associated with intrauterine infection. Furthermore, epidemiological evidence suggest that if birth asphyxia is preceded by infections during pregnancy, the combined exposure of infection and birth asphyxia dramatically increases the risk of spastic cerebral palsy, suggesting that there may be an interaction between systemic infection and perinatal asphyxia. Taken together, the evidence suggests that inflammation is a key mechanism in brain injury in the newborn.

The overall goal of this project is to determine how brain damage occurs in the fetus or newborn and possible methods to prevent or treat the injuries. We will identify inflammatory mediators in the blood and the brain that are injurious following intrauterine infection in fetal sheep. Specific cellular mechanisms that are important for brain injury are examined in gene manipulated mice lacking some of the candidate inflammatory genes and in vitro cell cultures. Examples of such inflammatory processes that are investigated are matrix metalloproteinases and toll-like receptors. The research is conducted at the Perinatal Center, mainly supported by the European Union (NEOBRAIN and NEUROBID, www.neobrain.eu). The Perinatal Center is a multi-disciplinary organization where basic and clinical research meet. Both experimental animal models and molecular techniques are used.

A better understanding of these injurious mechanisms will be important in preventing or treating infection-induced vulnerability of the newborn brain.

 Publications 2004-2006

Publications 2006-2007

Publications 2008-2009