Epidemiology Of The Developmental Disabilities

Neurological Disorders And Stroke

Investigators

Linked publications & trials

Abstract

Recent studies of cerebral palsy have investigated the association between intrauterine exposure to infection or inflammation and cerebral palsy in infants born before 32 weeks gestational age. One of these is a study of clinical, histologic, and bacteriologic markers of infection, usually chorioamnionitis, in a population of very premature infants cared for in specialized nurseries, born to women without preeclampsia, the study tightly controlled for gestational age. Unlike the findings in term or near-term infants, very premature infants exposed to utero to infection did not, overall, demonstrate an increased risk of cerebral palsy. In a subset of these infants, archived neonatal blood was examined for concentrations of cytokines, these measured two different methods, recycling immunoaffinity chromatography and by flow cytometry; neither method of measurement indicated a difference between cytokine concentrations in children with CP v. control children. The clinical markers paper is in press, the cytokines paper is in review. With Dr. John Lynch we continue to investigate coagulation factors in children with stroke, and in collaboration with colleagues in California are performing PCR studies of polymorphisms related to coagulation and to inflammation in neonatal blood of premature children with cerebral palsy. In collaboration with Dr. P. Nelson (NICHD), studies continue of proteins in neonatal blood of children with autism or Down syndrome, and specimens are ready for supply to Dr. T. Phillips (OD) for investigation of proteins previously examined in blood of neonates with later diagnosis of autism.