Effect of neonatal hyperthermia on brain function

抄録

Children often experience hyperthermia mainly because of infection. Hyperthermia during development, when the functional neural circuit is actively formed, may have irreversible effects on the future brain function. In this research, we artificially induced hyperthermia in postnatal mice to directly examine the effect of hyperthermia on the development of neural circuit and brain function. After seven days of hyperthermic treatment, microglia, the primary immune cells in the brain, showed activated phenotype. In addition, mice that experienced prolonged seizures during hyperthermia showed shorter immobility time than control mice in the forced swim test. These results suggest that neonatal hyperthermia affects the cellular and behavioral phenotypes.