Citation

Watson JB, Mednick SA, Huttunen M, Wang X. Dev. Psychopathol. 1999; 11(3): 457-466.

Affiliation

Social Science Research Institute, Allan Hancock Foundation, University of Southern California, Los Angeles 90089-0375, USA. jwatson@rcf.usc.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 1999, Cambridge University Press)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

10532619

Abstract

Our findings in the Helsinki Influenza Study and the Danish Forty Year Study lead us to conclude that a 2nd-trimester maternal influenza infection may increase risk for adult schizophrenia or adult major affective disorder. More recently we have also reported an increase of unipolar depression among offspring who were exposed prenatally to a severe earthquake (7.8 on the Richter scale) in Tangshan, China. Among the earthquake-exposed males (but not the females), we observed a significantly greater depression response for those individuals exposed during the 2nd trimester of gestation. These findings suggest that maternal influenza infection and severe maternal stress may operate (in different ways) as teratogens, disrupting the development of the fetal brain and increasing risk for developing schizophrenia or depression in adulthood.

Language: en