In the July 4th issue of Science, Italian researchers revealed that a malfunction in the regulation of the brain chemical serotonin may be at the root of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), new research suggests.

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is a syndrome marked by the symptoms of sudden and unexplained death of apparently healthy infants, one month to one year in age.

Cornelius Gross, of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Italy, led the study in which the scientists were studying the brain chemical's relationship to anxiety and aggression before they realized their results might have something to do with crib death or SIDS. They made alterations in the normal level of serotonin in mice and observed that this resulted in sudden death for many of the mice.

Cornelius Gross said, “At first sight the mice were normal, but then they suffered sporadic and unpredictable drops in heart rate and body temperature. More than half of the mice eventually died of these crises during a restricted period of early life. It was at that point that we thought it might have something to do with SIDS.”

“This mouse model is important. Causing dysfunction in brainstem serotonin can lead to death in a majority of affected animals,” Marian Willinger, a SIDS expert with the U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, said at a press conference, on Thursday.
Scientists are hoping that this study will help the doctors to diagnose the babies who are at a risk of SIDS.