Very early exposure to even a very small dose of herpes simplex virus (HSV) in infant mice can lead to cognitive decline later in life, according to findings from a new Dartmouth-led study, in collaboration with Harvard Medical School and published in the journal PLoS Pathogens. This is significant because of emerging data in human studies showing an association between HSV and Alzheimer’s disease in humans.
HSV infections are very common, typically affecting the skin and the nervous system. While these infections often lay dormant in the body and usually don’t pose serious health risks, HSV can be much more dangerous for those with underdeveloped immune systems such as newborns. Neonatal HSV, which is associated with high rates of disease and death, affects about 14,000 newborns worldwide each year.
“Clinical outcomes of neonatal HSV infections, where symptoms have been readily apparent, have been well-studied. But little has been known about the frequency of, or outcomes following, asymptomatic neonatal HSV and how it may contribute to long-term neurological damage,” explains David Leib, PhD, chair and professor of Microbiology and Immunology at Dartmouth’s Geisel School of Medicine, who served as a corresponding author on the study in a collaboration with Katherine Nautiyal, PhD, assistant professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth. The research project was led by first-and-second authors Abigail Dutton and Evelyn Turnbaugh, MD/PhD and PhD candidates, respectively, at Geisel and the Guarini School of Graduate and Advanced Studies at Dartmouth.
To assess potential neurological outcomes associated with asymptomatic neonatal HSV