Perinatal brain injury and inflammation

Perinatal brain injury involves neuroinflammation with consequences for neuropsychiatric disease extending into adult life as reported in a paper recently published in Nature Reviews Neurology. The authors state:

"Inflammation is increasingly recognized as being a critical contributor to both normal development and injury outcome in the immature brain. The focus of this Review is to highlight important differences in innate and adaptive immunity in immature versus adult brain, which support the notion that the consequences of inflammation will be entirely different depending on context and stage of CNS development."

Preterm birth gets a head start with neuroinflammation

Inflammation plays a role in the incidence of preterm birth occurring in the first place:

"Perinatal brain injury can result from neonatal encephalopathy and perinatal arterial ischaemic stroke, usually at term, but also in preterm infants. Inflammation occurs before, during and after brain injury at term, and modulates vulnerability to and development of brain injury. Preterm birth, on the other hand, is often a result of exposure to inflammation at a very early developmental phase, which affects the brain not only during fetal life, but also over a protracted period of postnatal life in a neonatal intensive care setting, influencing critical phases of myelination and cortical plasticity."

A risk factor for adult neuropsychiatric disorders

The authors' conclusion reminds practitioners to consider perinatal brain injury as an etiologic factor in adult disorders:

"Neuroinflammation during the perinatal period can increase the risk of neurological and neuropsychiatric disease throughout childhood and adulthood, and is, therefore, of concern to the broader group of physicians who care for these individuals."