The effect of undernutrition on the postnatal development of the brain and cord in pigs

1967 ◽  
Vol 166 (1005) ◽  
pp. 396-407 ◽  

Sucking pigs about 2 weeks old were held back by undernutrition so that they weighed only 5 to 6 kg when they were a year of age. The brain and cord developed during this time to the size to be expected in a normal pig about 10 weeks old but, although they remained immature for their chronological age, the effect on the various constituents was not uniform. The accumulation of cholesterol was less retarded than that of DNA.P or the increase in brain weight. During rehabilitation on a highly satisfactory diet the final body w eight reached at 3 1/2 years was 80 % of that to be expected in an adult pig and was equivalent only to that of a normal pig two years old. The central nervous system grew to the appropriate size for the body. The percentage of cholesterol in the central nervous system rose during rehabilitation, but, particularly in the forebrain, brain stem and spinal cord, remained subnormal for the chronological age. The deficiency of DNA- P in the rehabilitated brain was even greater, and the absolute amount finally corresponded to that found in the brain of a norm alanimal only one year of age.

The growth and chemical development of the brain and spinal cord of the pig have been studied between the 52nd day of gestation and 3 years of age. The brain increased in weight faster than the spinal cord. Its most rapid period of growth lasted from about 50 days before birth to about 40 days afterwards and was made up of an early period characterized by DNA -P deposition and a later one of lipid deposition. The percentage of water in each part of the central nervous system fell during development and the concentrations of total N, phospholipid-P and cholesterol rose. The concentration of DNA -P fell gradually over the period studied in the brain as a whole, but in the cerebellum and brain stem the fall was preceded by a rise to a peak concentration at about 95 days of gestation. The cerebellum was the only part of the central nervous system examined in which the absolute amount of DNA -P attained a mature value before three years of age. The spinal cord had no early growth spurt and for this reason there was no time when the absolute amounts of cholesterol and phospholipid-P were rising conspicuously rapidly. There was, however, a period when the concentration of cholesterol increased most rapidly and this coincided with the one in other parts of the central nervous system. The bearing of these results on the effects of stress on the development of the central nervous system is discussed.


Author(s):  
Jamie A. Davies

This chapter assesses the nervous system. In the trunk of the body and the neck, the central nervous system (CNS) is called the spinal cord; in the head, it is called the brain. The CNS is dominated by two cell types: neurons and glia. The neurons form a vast network in which information is split, combined, and somehow processed. Examples of this processing include reflex arcs, the ‘circuitry’ that detects features such as edges in images coming from the eyes, and simple types of learning and memory. However, most other things in the brain, especially thinking and feeling, are not yet understood at all well.


2018 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 10-13
Author(s):  
James B. Talmage ◽  
Jay Blaisdell

Abstract Injuries that affect the central nervous system (CNS) can be catastrophic because they involve the brain or spinal cord, and determining the underlying clinical cause of impairment is essential in using the AMA Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment (AMA Guides), in part because the AMA Guides addresses neurological impairment in several chapters. Unlike the musculoskeletal chapters, Chapter 13, The Central and Peripheral Nervous System, does not use grades, grade modifiers, and a net adjustment formula; rather the chapter uses an approach that is similar to that in prior editions of the AMA Guides. The following steps can be used to perform a CNS rating: 1) evaluate all four major categories of cerebral impairment, and choose the one that is most severe; 2) rate the single most severe cerebral impairment of the four major categories; 3) rate all other impairments that are due to neurogenic problems; and 4) combine the rating of the single most severe category of cerebral impairment with the ratings of all other impairments. Because some neurological dysfunctions are rated elsewhere in the AMA Guides, Sixth Edition, the evaluator may consult Table 13-1 to verify the appropriate chapter to use.


1908 ◽  
Vol 54 (226) ◽  
pp. 560-561
Author(s):  
David Orr ◽  
R. G. Rows

At a quarterly meeting of this Association held last year at Nottingham, we showed the results of our experiments with toxins upon the spinal cord and brain of rabbits. Our main conclusion was, that the central nervous system could be infected by toxins passing up along the lymph channels of the perineural sheath. The method we employed in our experiments consisted in placing a celloidin capsule filled with a broth culture of an organism under the sciatic nerve or under the skin of the cheek; and we invariably found a resulting degeneration in the spinal cord or brain, according to the situation of the capsule. These lesions we found to be identical in morphological type and anatomical distribution with those found in the cord of early tabes dorsalis and in the brain and cord of general paralysis of the insane. The conclusion suggested by our work was that these two diseases, if toxic, were most probably infections of lymphogenous origin.


PEDIATRICS ◽  
1957 ◽  
Vol 19 (5) ◽  
pp. 949-957
Author(s):  
William A. Hawke ◽  
John S. Prichard

THE SEMINAR was conducted in four 3-hour sessions and aimed to cover the more important features of pediatric neurology. DEVELOPMENT Dr. Hawke reviewed the normal development of the central nervous system in the infant and child which is so important in the assessment of neurologic disorders in this age group. It was noted that the nervous system was particularly immature and changing rapidly in the first 2 years of life. Development was related to myelination and it was emphasized that this was not a steady process but a pattern of sequences of rapid and slow growth. Motor and sensory development appeared to develop from above and to proceed downward, so that eye-control develops before hand- and legcontrol. Development was related to three functioning levels of the central nervous system—the brain stem, the archipallium, and the neopallium. It was observed that the newborn baby functioned at the brain stem level, and to illustrate this an example was given of the hydranencephalic baby which behaves perfectly normally for the first few weeks of life. The anchipallium, which includes part of the temporal lobe, the cingulate gyrus and basal ganglia, supervenes on the brain stem and may be considered responsible for the basic emotions and some primitive motor and sensory control. The neopallium, which includes most of the cerebral hemisphere, becomes dominant in primates. Its function is intellectual rather than emotional and is responsible for skills, discrimination and fine movements. The clinical application of these developmental patterns are innumerable but illustrations were given of changes in physical signs in static brain lesions.


Author(s):  
Peggy Mason

The central nervous system develops from a proliferating tube of cells and retains a tubular organization in the adult spinal cord and brain, including the forebrain. Failure of the neural tube to close at the front is lethal, whereas failure to close the tube at the back end produces spina bifida, a serious neural tube defect. Swellings in the neural tube develop into the hindbrain, midbrain, diencephalon, and telencephalon. The diencephalon sends an outpouching out of the cranium to form the retina, providing an accessible window onto the brain. The dorsal telencephalon forms the cerebral cortex, which in humans is enormously expanded by growth in every direction. Running through the embryonic neural tube is an internal lumen that becomes the cerebrospinal fluid–containing ventricular system. The effects of damage to the spinal cord and forebrain are compared with respect to impact on self and potential for improvement.


1951 ◽  
Vol 97 (409) ◽  
pp. 792-800 ◽  
Author(s):  
L. Crome

The problems of the interdependence and unity of the brain and body have been put on a scientific basis by Pavlov and his successors. Bykov (1947) has, for example, been able to demonstrate that the cortex plays a leading part in the regulation of somatic processes, such as secretion of urine, blood pressure, peristalsis and metabolism. It is therefore reasonable to argue that lesions of the central nervous system will be reflected in the pathogenesis and course of morbid processes in the body. It does not follow, however, that this influence will necessarily be in the direction of greater lability, more rapid pathogenesis or more extensive destruction. The outstanding feature of the central nervous system is its plasticity and power of compensation. It is therefore possible and probable that those parts of the nervous system which remain intact will take over and compensate for the function of the lost ones. Emotion may, for example, lead to polyuria, but it does not follow that urinary secretion will be impaired in a leucotomized patient. The brain may well play an important part in the infective processes of a normal person, but the defence against infection in a microcephalic idiot may remain perfectly adequate, and may even be more effective than in a normal person, provided that the mechanism of the immunity and phagocytosis had been more fully mobilized in the course of his previous life.


Neurosurgery ◽  
1988 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 691-693 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis A. Rodriguez ◽  
Michael Prados ◽  
Dorcas Fulton ◽  
Michael S. B. Edwards ◽  
Pamela Silver ◽  
...  

Abstract Twenty-one patients with recurrent malignant central nervous system gliomas were treated with a combination of 5-fluorouracil, CCNU, hydroxyurea, and 6-mercaptopurine. Thirteen patients had brain stem gliomas, 3 patients had spinal cord gliomas, 3 patients had thalamic gliomas, and 2 patients had cerebellar astrocytomas. All patients had received radiation therapy, and 4 brain stem patients had also been treated with chemotherapy. Sixteen patients (76%) responded to treatment with either stabilization of disease or improvement. Nine of the 13 patients with brain stem gliomas (71%) had response or stabilization of disease. The median time to tumor progression (TTP) for the brain stem patients who responded or had stabilization of disease was 25 weeks. The median survival from recurrence for the brain stem glioma patients was 27 weeks. Patients with cerebellar, thalamic, and spinal cord tumors did very well, with an 87% response or stabilization of disease and a median TTP of 122 weeks.


2003 ◽  
Vol 370 (2) ◽  
pp. 557-566 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ying SUN ◽  
David P. WITTE ◽  
Peng JIN ◽  
Gregory A. GRABOWSKI

The expression of prosaposin is temporally and spatially regulated at transcriptional and post-translational levels. Transgenic mice with various 5′-flanking deletions of the prosaposin promoter fused to luciferase (LUC) reporters were used to define its temporal regulatory region. LUC expression in the transgenic mice carrying constructs with 234bp (234LUC), 310bp (310LUC) or 2400bp (2400LUC) of the 5′-flanking region was analysed in the central nervous system and eye throughout development. For 310LUC and 2400LUC, low-level LUC activity was maintained until embryonal day 18 in brain, eye and spinal cord. The peak level of LUC activity was at birth, with return to a plateau (1/3 of peak) throughout adulthood. Deletion of the region that included the retinoic acid-receptor-related orphan receptor (RORα)-binding site and sequence-specific transcription factor (Sp1) cluster sites (44—310bp) suppressed the peak of activity. By comparison, the peak level for 234LUC was shifted 2 weeks into neonatal life in the brain, but not in the eye, and no peak of activity was observed in the spinal cord. The endogenous prosaposin mRNA in eye, spinal cord and cerebellum had low-level expression before birth and continued to increase into adulthood. In cerebrum, the endogenous mRNA showed similar expression profile to constructs 310LUC, 2400LUC and 234LUC, with the peak expression at 1 week and a decreased level in adult. In the brain of the newborn, 2400LUC was highly expressed in the trigeminal ganglion and brain stem regions when compared with the generalized expression pattern for endogenous prosaposin mRNA. These results suggest that the modifiers (RORα- and Sp1-binding sites) residing within 310bp of the 5′-flanking region mediate developmental regulation in the central nervous system and eye. Additional regulatory elements outside the 5′ region of the 2400bp promoter fragment appear to be essential for the physiological control of the prosaposin locus.


1913 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 849-866
Author(s):  
Harold Axel Haig

The specimens submitted for examination were:(a) Portions of the brain (labelled Specimen XXXI.).(b) Portions of spinal cord (labelled Specimen XXIV.).Both were in excellent condition as regards fixation and hardening, having been preserved for many years in a fluid composed of formol and 95 per cent. alcohol (the fluid was also injected into the cerebral vessels). They were, previous to histological examination, submitted to the following processes:—i. Comparatively thin slices were taken from various regions and placed for twenty-four hours in absolute alcohol.ii. Then transferred to acetone for twelve hours.iii. Placed in xylol until permeated.iv. Embedded in paraffin of melting-point 52° C. Sections were then taken with an improved form of the Cambridge rocking microtome, and fixed to slides by means of the albumen method.


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