Interleukin-23 levels in umbilical cord blood are associated with neurodevelopmental trajectories in infancy

by Machiko K. Asaka, Tomoko Nishimura, Hitoshi Kuwabara, Hiroaki Itoh, Nagahide Takahashi, Kenji J. Tsuchiya

Our previous study, which aimed to understand the early neurodevelopmental trajectories of children with and without neurodevelopmental disorders, identified five classes of early neurodevelopmental trajectories, categorized as high normal, normal, low normal, delayed, and markedly delayed. This investigation involved measurement using the Mullen Scale of Early Learning in a representative sample of Japanese infants followed up from the age of 0 to 2 years (Nishimura et al., 2016). In the present study, we investigated the potential association between cytokine concentrations in umbilical cord serum with any of the five classes of neurodevelopmental trajectories previously assigned, as follows: high normal (N = 85, 13.0%), normal (N = 322, 49.1%), low normal (N = 137, 20.9%), delayed (N = 87, 13.3%), and markedly delayed (N = 25, 3.8%) in infancy. Decreased interleukin (IL)-23 levels in the cord blood were associated with the markedly delayed class, independent of potential confounders (odds ratio, 0.44; 95%confidence interval: 0.26–0.73). Furthermore, IL-23 levels decreased as the developmental trajectory became more delayed, demonstrating that IL-23 plays an important role in development, and is useful for predicting the developmental trajectory at birth.