The Developing Human Brain: Growth and Adversities

Floyd H. Gilles and Marvin D. Nelson Jr., Eds. The Developing Human Brain: Growth and Adversities. Clinics in Developmental Medicine No. 193, London: Mac Keith Press; 2012 (424 pages) (£ 110.00, Euro 132.00).

This volume has been written by a pediatric neuropathologist and a pediatric neuroradiologist practising at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. The book is based, in parts, on the National Collaborative Perinatal Project. It focuses on human brain development in the second half of the gestation period, and in neonates and infants. The authors deliberately renounce a discussion on infectious diseases, bilirubin encephalopathy, and malformations.

The book is divided into two sections. Section 1 includes selected topics in typical development (Brain growth; Fetal ventricular size, surfaces, and appendages; Germinal tissue (subventricular zone); Surface configuration—gyral pattern development; Myelinated tracts: growth patterns; Developing brain imaging and magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and Angiogenesis).

Section 2 includes (selected) acquired brain abnormalities, but starts with two “special” chapters: one titled Developmental human fetal reactions (describing among others, fetal breathing movements, hiccups, and auditory responses and their underlying neuroanatomical substrates), and the other titled Blake's pouch and retrocerebellar cysts: posterior fossa cysts. Although the information in these two chapters is interesting, their inclusion in a section on acquired brain abnormalities is questionable. The chapter on posterior fossa cysts is a very useful and clear review of the topic. Section 2 continues with chapters Developmental central nervous system aberration; Cerebral white matter abnormalities; Late fetal and perinatal brain vascular abnormalities and necroses; Fetal and neonatal intracranial hemorrhage; Ventriculomegaly, large head, megalencephaly, and hydrocephalus; and Developing brain reactions during chronic childhood disease.

In addition to the many tables, the book is also well illustrated with more than 200 images, many schemata, several historic lithographs and drawings, pathological specimens, and microphotographs of histological sections, but (too) few ultrasound and magnetic resonance images.

The strength of this volume is Section 1, which provides a wealth of information on brain growth and development. In particular, I find the chapters Surface configuration and Angiogenesis interesting. Although malformations were deliberately excluded, I was expecting to find at least some general comments on malformations and dysplasias, as well as notes on selective vulnerability and disruptions. There is neither a discussion on acquired cerebellar abnormalities nor one on the correlate of a very common type of cerebral palsy—hemiplegic (unilateral) cerebral palsy.

The emphasis of the entire book is on neuropathology. Thus, pediatric neurologists, with an interest in neuropathology and in fetal–neonatal neurology, and neuropathologists will find this book useful. However, its value in daily clinical use of “general” pediatric neurologists is limited.