A TEST OF THE IMMUNOREACTIVE THEORY FOR THE ORIGIN OF NEURODEVELOPMENTAL DISORDERS IN THE OFFSPRING OF WOMEN WITH IMMUNE DISORDER

Gualtieri and Hicks (1985) proposed that male vulnerability for neurod evelopmental disorders (NDs) was partially due to intrauterine immune attack of the fetus. One group of mothers with heightened immunoreacti vity might be women with immune disorder. This was tested within an ep idemiological sample of 17,283 mother/child pairs. Maternal Immune dis orders considered were ulcerative colitis or asthma. NDs in the child included: cerebral palsy, mental retardation, seizures, articulation d isorder, reading, or arithmetic disability, verbal or performance apti tude deficits, and attention deficit disorder. Unlike prior studies, w e controlled for demographic perinatal variables that might confound i nterpretation of the data. Results indicated that immune dysfunction i n the mother: be it autoimmune (ulcerative colitis) or defensive (asth ma) was not associated with an increased incidence of any NDs in the o ffspring, but mothers with ulcerative colitis did have a disproportion ate number of offspring who were non-right handed. Few variables discr iminated between the children of ulcerative colitis mothers who became right handed when compared to those who did not. We suggest that a) o nly certain maternal autoimmune disorders such as systemic lupus eryth ematosus (but not ulcerative colitis or asthma) elevate the risk of in trauterine immune attack and b) the elevated rate of non-right handed offspring among ulcerative colitis mothers was not an instance of immu ne attack but instead represents some kind of genetic association.