It is already well known that if a mother gets especially stressed during preganacy, her stress hormones can cross the placenta and this can cause problems for the baby. When you get an infection, your immune system produces cytokines, which can trigger stress through the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis, which can cause an upregulation in stress hormones. So essentially, when the baby recieves these hormones, it is essentially bieng told that the world outside is a stressful place. Because of this, it changes the sensory apparatus in it's brain to adapt to this situation. This is known as Foetal programming. It has been hypothesised that in the wild, in times of stress, it was more beneficial to be schizophrenic than it is now, in our heavily industrialised society. However, there has never been any incidence in which the actual influenza virus has been observed in the brains of foetuses. Instead it is believed that the inflammatory response to the flu is what causes these responses.
When you get an infection, your immune system produces cytokines, which can trigger stress through the hypothalamo-pituitary-adrenal axis, which can cause an upregulation in stress hormones.
So essentially, when the baby recieves these hormones, it is essentially bieng told that the world outside is a stressful place. Because of this, it changes the sensory apparatus in it's brain to adapt to this situation. This is known as Foetal programming.
It has been hypothesised that in the wild, in times of stress, it was more beneficial to be schizophrenic than it is now, in our heavily industrialised society.
However, there has never been any incidence in which the actual influenza virus has been observed in the brains of foetuses. Instead it is believed that the inflammatory response to the flu is what causes these responses.