Iowa City, Iowa — Researchers have long been suspicious that high blood pressure in pregnancy is a risk factor for childhood seizures, but a recent study examining large clinical databases and mouse models confirmed this association. The manuscript, “Gestational hypertension increases risk of seizures in children and mice," was published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Senior author Alex Bassuk M.D., Ph.D., professor and chair of pediatrics at the University of Iowa, said, "We examined large national clinical databases as well as databases at the University of Iowa and Stanford University, and we even have international collaborations with database analysis from our collaborators in Taiwan. This was a real team effort."
Bassuk and co-author Vinit Mahajan M.D., Ph.D., Stanford professor and vice chair of ophthalmology, are especially excited they were able to validate the human data in the laboratory.
"This study is unique because you have an association drawn from analyses of large human clinical databases, but then we go on to prove the association in an animal model,” said Mahajan. “And we were even able to reduce seizures in mice offspring with anti-inflammatory drugs based on what we learned in the model.”
The combination of big data analysis in humans and mouse model testing in the same study is a powerful approach to understanding and treating childhood disease.
Click here to read more about their research.