Dr. Antonson uses translational animal models to investigate inflammatory and neurodevelopmental origins of behavioral abnormalities and mental health disorders. Focusing on the prenatal period as a critical developmental window, Dr. Antonson has demonstrated that maternal insults such as viral infection and psychological stress during pregnancy alter neuroimmune signatures in the offspring brain, leading to disrupted behaviors. Her central research focus is investigating exogenous and endogenous signals, deriving from prenatal maternal immune activation, that shift the function of fetal microglial cells, the resident brain macrophage, and subsequently disrupt microglial-mediated neurodevelopment. Her work also hypothesizes that downstream perturbations of the maternal microbiome propagates detrimental inflammatory signaling that contributes to disruptions in immune balance at the maternal-fetal interface.