In recent years, the number of preterm infants is increasing worldwide, probably due to the development of perinatal care.Of these, very preterm infants born less than 28 weeks gestation develop cognitive dysfunction in nearly 2% to half.The cause was supposed to be cerebral ischemia experienced by very premature infants, but it was not well understood how it would affect the brain.
A research team at Keio University has now revealed that when a very premature baby is born, nerve cells are still migrating in the brain, and that the damage caused by ischemia is involved in the subsequent cognitive dysfunction. I made it.
When a brain network is created, it is important that nerve cells in the brain move to appropriate positions.Until now, although the brains of very preterm infants are immature, it has been thought that the placement of major nerve cells is almost complete.However, this study overturned it and found that nerve cells were still migrating.In addition, in experiments using mice, it was found that if ischemia occurs during this period, the movement of nerve cells is impaired, and the nerve cells remain in the middle of the movement path.Like humans, these mice showed cognitive dysfunction after they grew up.
The researchers also found that keeping mice low in temperature during ischemia can prevent the development of disorders, and increasing nerve activity in the frontal lobe after birth improves cognitive dysfunction.In the future, it is expected that it will be applied to humans and that new preventive and therapeutic methods will be developed.
Paper information: [JCI Insight] Association of impaired neuronal migration with cognitive deficits in extremely preterm infants
