Maternal coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) may result in immune activation that impacts fetal brain development with implications for child neurodevelopment. In the current project, Andrea Edlow and colleagues plan to develop a rich COVID-19 biorepository that includes maternal blood, stool and rectal samples, as well as placental biopsies and breast milk. They also plan to establish a registry that tracks families over time. These studies will serve as a foundation for future studies that aim to understand how maternal COVID-19 infection impacts fetal and early childhood brain development.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection may induce profound maternal immune activation during pregnancy. Since maternal immune activation has been shown to be associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes in early childhood, it is critical that studies begin to investigate the immunological and neurodevelopmental repercussions to children exposed to SARS-CoV-2 infection in utero. With this goal in mind, Karin Nielsen and collaborators plan to collect maternal-infant specimens over time and to assess neurodevelopmental outcomes in children with antenatal COVID-19 exposure.

Anna-Sophie Rommel and her colleagues established a prospective pregnancy cohort, Generation C, in New York City in the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic to investigate the impact of maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection. The supplemental funding from SFARI will help to build the infrastructure to retain participants for longitudinal follow-up research. This will help the researchers to investigate longer-term effects of maternal SARS-CoV-2 infection and inflammation on child neurodevelopment, including risk for ASD.

Online measures have the potential to provide greater sensitivity to change in longitudinal studies and clinical trials. In the current study, Thomas Frazier and colleagues plan to develop and validate an online evaluation tool that includes: (1) a survey completed by caregivers to better understand behavior and functioning and (2) patient-completed measures that use a webcam to collect gaze and facial expression responses to evaluate thinking skills. If successful, the measures developed could greatly enhance research in autism and related neurodevelopmental genetic syndromes and might one day enhance clinical practice.