Neurodevelopmental care, which is any NICU intervention undertaken to improve neurodevelopmental outcome, includes NICU design, nursing routines, nursing care plans, management of pain, feeding methods and, most importantly, encouraging parental involvement with their NICU infant. Recognition that sensory stimulation can overwhelm preterm infants and increase physiologic signs of stress led to ...

This paper is based on a theory being developed in collaboration with Seymour Papert [Note 1] in which we v i e w t h e m i n d a s a n o r g a n i z e d s o c i e t y o f intercommunicating "agents". Each such agent is, by itself, very simple. The subject of this paper is how that simplicity affects communication between different parts of a single mind and, indirectly, how it may affect inter...

Dramatic, seemingly exponential advances have brought about much hope towards improving the efficacy of management of patients with conditions long-thought incurable, such as neurogenetic disorders. These advances have been both technological and conceptual. They result from refinements in the understanding of pathophysiology and intensive developments of approaches to compensate or bypass the ...

Pain in the developing fetus is controversial because of the difficulty in measuring and interpreting pain during gestation. It has received increased attention lately because of recently introduced legislation that would require consideration of fetal pain during intentional termination of pregnancy. During development, sensory fibers are abundant by 20 weeks; a functional spinal reflex is pre...

Copy number variants (CNVs), characterized in recent years by cutting-edge technology, add complexity to our knowledge of the human genome. CNVs contribute not only to human diversity but also to different kinds of diseases including neurodevelopmental delay, autism spectrum disorder and neuropsychiatric diseases. Interestingly, many pathogenic CNVs are shared among these diseases. Studies sugg...

Epilepsy is characterized by spontaneous recurrent seizures and comprises a diverse group of syndromes with different etiologies. Epileptogenesis refers to the process whereby the brain becomes epileptic and can be related to several factors, such as acquired structural brain lesions, inborn brain malformations, alterations in neuronal signaling, and defects in maturation and plasticity of neur...

Three cases of congenital cranial hemihypertrophy are described. CT or ultrasound scans showed unilateral cerebral enlargement with dilatation of the ipsilateral ventricle. Seizures occurred in two patients and the neurodevelopmental outlook appears poor. These patients represent a poor prognosis subgroup of the congenital hemihypertrophies.

Brain tumors represent the most common solid tumor of childhood, with gliomas comprising the largest fraction of these cancers. Several features distinguish them from their adult counterparts, including their natural history, causative genetic mutations, and brain locations. These unique properties suggest that the cellular and molecular etiologies that underlie their development and maintenanc...

Overview The childhood disorders known collectively as neurodevelopmental disorders are associated with various dysfunctions in cognition, learning, communication and behaviour, and include: attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), autism spectrum disorder (ASD), dyspraxia and dyslexia. Evidence suggests that neurodevelopmental disorders are the result of genetic and environmental facto...

Animal models are very valuable for biomedical research. They enable to disclose pathological processes of the diseases and their treatment possibilities. Development of appropriate animal models of complex neuropsychiatric disorders, such as schizophrenia, is challenging since many clinical symptoms are difficult to replicate and assess in animals. There is strong evidence that disturbed brain...