COVID-19 in Fathers May Affect Offspring’s Brain Development, Study in Mice Suggests

A new study in mice has found that COVID-19 infection in fathers could potentially influence the brain development of their offspring and lead to anxiety-like behaviours, raising questions about the virus’s long-term effects on future generations.

Researchers from Australia’s Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health discovered that offspring conceived after a male mouse had recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infection exhibited higher levels of anxious behaviour compared to those from uninfected fathers.

“We let male mice recover from SARS-CoV-2 infection for a few weeks before they mated with healthy females. We found that the resulting offspring showed more anxious behaviours compared to offspring from uninfected fathers,” said Elizabeth Kleeman, research officer and first author of the study published in Nature Communications.

The findings suggest that COVID-19 may induce changes in sperm, potentially affecting brain development in the next generation. While the study offers important insights, the researchers caution that these results need verification in humans before drawing definitive conclusions.

This research underscores the need for further studies to understand the intergenerational impact of COVID-19 and its possible long-term implications for mental health.