Brain and heart defects linked in infants.
November 14th 2007 03:45
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A study from the University of California San Francisco links congenital heart disease in full term infants to the fact that their brains are more like those of a premature infant than they are a full term who does not have the disease.
Mental and physical defects begin in utero as well as that occasioned by the heart surgery required.
Cognitive function such as memory, attention, and language skills are affected as well as fine motor skills.
Lower levels of oxygen reaching the brain before birth are suspected of causing the problems.
The children had two defects. The first being transposition of the great arteries. The
second is hypoplastic left heart syndrome (a very rare condition). The left side of the heart is severely underdeveloped.
It is the left side of the heart that the lungs send the oxygen rich blood to and from here it is pumped out to the rest of the body.
The babies who have congenital heart disease do not have enough blood volume which means oxygen and nutrients being pumped to the brain and the rest of the body are insufficient as well.
The children who have either one of these conditions must have surgery as soon as possible after birth.
These infants has a smaller head circumference meaning brains are not growing normally nor developing normally.
When the looked at the basic features of the brains, the children with the defects had a smaller head circumference at birth than the children without the defects. This is a clear indication that the brains are not growing normally. And they are not developing normally either.
Most often injury to the white matter in the brain that is identical the what they find in premature infants.
The goal of the research is to find the point at which brain injury develops in the children with the defects so that they can find a way to intervene and hopefully protect the baby's brain rather than regard it as a result of surgery.
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