Long-term coordinated microstructural disruptions of the developing neocortex and subcortical white matter after early postnatal systemic inflammation

Severe postnatal systemic infection is highly associated with persistent disturbances in brain development and neurobehavioral outcomes in survivors of preterm birth. However, the contribution of less severe but prolonged postnatal infection and inflammation to such disturbances is unclear. Further, the ability of modern imaging techniques to detect the underlying changes in cellular microstructure of the brain in these infants remains to be validated. We used high-field ex-vivo MRI, neurohistopathology, and behavioral tests in newborn rats to demonstrate that prolonged postnatal systemic inflammation causes subtle, persisting disturbances in brain development, with neurodevelopmental delays and mild motor impairments. Diffusion-tensor MRI and neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI) revealed delayed maturation of neocortical and subcortical white matter microstructure. Analysis of pyramidal neurons showed that the cortical deficits involved impaired dendritic arborization and spine formation. Analysis of oligodendrocytes showed that the white matter deficits involved impaired oligodendrocyte maturation and axonal myelination. These findings indicate that prolonged postnatal inflammation, without severe infection, may critically contribute to the diffuse spectrum of brain pathology and subtle long-term disability in preterm infants, with a cellular mechanism involving oligodendrocyte and neuronal dysmaturation. NODDI may be useful for clinical detection of these microstructural deficits.

Anti-Inflammatory Therapies for Treatment of Inflammation-Related Preterm Brain Injury

Despite the prevalence of preterm brain injury, there are no established neuroprotective strategies to prevent or alleviate mild-to-moderate inflammation-related brain injury. Perinatal infection and inflammation have been shown to trigger acute neuroinflammation, including proinflammatory cytokine release and gliosis, which are associated with acute and chronic disturbances in brain cell survival and maturation. These findings suggest the hypothesis that the inhibition of peripheral immune responses following infection or nonspecific inflammation may be a therapeutic strategy to reduce the associated brain injury and neurobehavioral deficits. This review provides an overview of the neonatal immunity, neuroinflammation, and mechanisms of inflammation-related brain injury in preterm infants and explores the safety and efficacy of anti-inflammatory agents as potentially neurotherapeutics.

Analgesics, sedatives, anticonvulsant drugs, and the cooled brain

Multiple randomized controlled trials have shown that prolonged, moderate cerebral hypothermia initiated within a few hours after severe hypoxia-ischemia and continued until resolution of the acute phase of delayed cell death reduces mortality and improves neurodevelopmental outcome in term infants. The challenge is now to find ways to further improve outcomes. In the present review, we critically examine the evidence that conventional analgesic, sedative, or anticonvulsant agents might improve outcomes, in relation to the known window of opportunity for effective protection with hypothermia. This review strongly indicates that there is insufficient evidence to recommend routine use of these agents during therapeutic hypothermia. Further systematic research into the effects of pain and stress on the injured brain, and their treatment during hypothermia, is essential to guide the rational development of clinical treatment protocols.

A Critical Review of Models of Perinatal Infection

One of the central, unanswered questions in perinatology is why preterm infants continue to have such poor long-term neurodevelopmental, cognitive and learning outcomes, even though severe brain injury is now rare. There is now strong clinical evidence that one factor underlying disability may be infection, as well as nonspecific inflammation, during fetal and early postnatal life. In this review, we examine the experimental evidence linking both acute and chronic infection/inflammation with perinatal brain injury and consider key experimental determinants, including the microglia response, relative brain and immune maturity and the pattern of exposure to infection. We highlight the importance of the origin and derivation of the bacterial cell wall component lipopolysaccharide. Such experimental paradigms are essential to determine the precise time course of the inflammatory reaction and to design targeted neuroprotective strategies to protect the perinatal brain from infection and inflammation.

Constitutional delay influences the auxological response to growth hormone treatment in children with short stature and growth hormone sufficiency

In a retrospective, population based cohort study, we examined whether constitutional delay was associated with the growth response to growth hormone (GH) in children with short stature and normal GH responses. 70 patients were treated with 21 GH iu/m2/week from 1975 to 2013 throughout New Zealand. Demographic and auxological data were prospectively collected and standard deviation scores (SDS) were calculated for height (HtSDS), yearly growth velocity (GV-SDS), body mass index (BMI-SDS) and predicted adult height (PAH-SDS) at time of the last available bone age. In the first year, GH was associated with marked increase in HtSDS (+0.46 (0.19, 0.76), p < 0.001) and GV-SDS (from −1.9 (−3.6, −0.7) to +2.7 (0.45, 4.2), p < 0.001). The increase in HtSDS but not in GV-SDS was greatest with younger patients and greater bone age delay, with no effect of sex, BMI-SDS or baseline HtSDS. PAH-SDS increased with treatment (+0.94 (0.18, 1.5)); increased PAH-SDS was associated with less bone age delay and greater initial increase in HtSDS. This study shows that greater bone age delay was associated with greater initial improvement in height but less improvement in predicted adult heights, suggesting that children with very delayed bone ages may show accelerated maturation during GH treatment.