Neurology

There’s good news for premature infants with bronchopulmonary dysplasia (BPD): treatment with hydrocortisone does not seem to adversely effect brain growth, meaning that hydrocortisone may provide a safer alternative to dexamethasone.

Young children learning to play the drums, or a tiny violin, or the piano might not be making music to their parents’ ears, but they definitely are making their brains grow, says a new study.

Primary care physicians, including pediatricians, admit that they are not as familiar about specific aspects of epilepsy as they should be.

A new study has identified retinal imaging as a tool that can distinguish cases of abusive brain trauma with 93% accuracy.

Children institutionalized early in life show significant reductions in gray and white matter in the cerebral cortex, researchers report. Can the effects be reversed?

Treating obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) in children early can alter their entire learning trajectory, new research shows. What treatment was most effective in reversing cognitive deficits caused by OSA?

An ongoing study that could lead to an imaging biomarker for autism as early as 6 months, before the onset of observable behavioral symptoms, may also eventually provide practitioners an avenue for earlier intervention in autism spectrum disorders

Child psychiatrists and neuroscientists at Washington University found that children who are nurtured and shown love and affection from the earliest days of their lives have brains with a larger hippocampus, the key part of the brain involved with memory, stress response, and learning. Find out more about how this study and its provocative findings add to previous studies of nurturing.

Assessing underlying risk factors for childhood stroke is important to survival and quality of life. New findings suggest that recent minor acute infections of the ear, upper respiratory tract, and urinary tract can pose a high risk of ischemic stroke in children. These are common pediatric occurrences, so how can you identify patients at risk?

Most US teenagers are sleep deprived-nearly 70% do not get 8 or more hours of sleep a night. Now, new research suggests that the implications of that may be more significant than simply parents being kept awake by late-night tapping on mobile phones or even by groggy teens nodding off in class. What did a study in mice find out about how short-term sleep restriction can affect the balance between growth and depletion of brain synapses?

Perennial concerns about whether cell phones cause brain cancer often focus on children and adolescents. In the first-of-its-kind study, Swiss researchers found that answer is no, and they also offer some advice to parents who are anxious.

The Simplified Motor Score can replace the Glasgow Coma Scale for predicting outcomes of traumatic brain injury in the out-of-hospital setting, according to a new study.

Low hemoglobin levels put severely anemic children, especially those with sickle cell disease (SCD), at risk of silent infarctions (SI) that could cause long-term cognitive and learning deficits.

Children with newly diagnosed epilepsy generally have favorable outcomes, according to new research.

With no standard definition of the term, "concussion," particularly with regard to children, investigators examined the clinical correlates of the concussion diagnosis and identified factors that lead clinicians to use the term.

In an analysis of three common antiseizure medications used to treat absence epilepsy in children, ethosuxomide was associated with the best outcomes overall, compared with lamotrigine and valproic acid.

Children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) may have failures in certain brain connections that occur when children attempt tasks requiring their attention.

A recent study suggests that a child's risk for arterial ischemic stroke (AIS) or cerebral sinovenous thromboembolism (CSVT) is related to endogenous testosterone concentrations.

Children who have received the chickenpox vaccine are not at risk of stroke or brain inflammation, according to researched published in the February 2009 issue of Pediatrics.

The FDA is weighing approval of an investigational epilepsy drug for adults and children that has reportedly caused vision loss in certain patients.

Late preterm infants were more than three times as likely to be diagnosed with cerebral palsy as full term babies, according to research forthcoming in The Journal of Pediatrics.

“The mind is what the brain does,” said Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s John D. E. Gabrieli, PhD, leading off Sunday’s connected plenary sessions on the brain and early childhood development. His focus was on how functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) has changed what we know about how child brains differ from adult brains.

As schools begin to prepare their teams for the upcoming season, they need to be aware of the dangers of heat and heat illness. While not as prevalent as it has been in past years, cases of heat stroke are still among the most dangerous things that can happen to an athlete during summer practices, according to the Annual Survey of Football Injury Research.

Adult loss of brain volume may be linked to lead exposure during childhood, according to the May PLoS Medicine.

So few children have strokes that it's been difficult to study them. But a new report released by the American Stroke Association said that boys are more likely to suffer a stroke as girls...

Intracranial bleeding in newborns has been found common after a vaginal birth, although the bleeding is limited and apparently has no effect, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

Steven, a 13-year-old boy, experienced his first headache at age 7 years. The frequency, intensity, and duration of his headaches have been increasing over the past 6 months. Steven now experiences 7 to 10 headaches each month that last up to 8 hours. The headaches are associated with mild nausea, light and sound sensitivity, dizziness, fatigue, occasional abdominal discomfort, and difficulty in concentrating. Last year, he had a vomiting episode because of a headache. The pain is usually more prominent in the forehead and does not favor either side of the head. The headaches usually begin in the morning before he leaves for school. As a result, Steven has missed nearly 25% of his school days this semester; his parents are considering home tutoring for "sick children who are unable to attend school."

You've been called down to the emergency department early this morning by the ED attending to see a 5-month-old girl brought in by her parents because of vomiting. The attending does not see signs of dehydration, but reports that the baby "looks funny."

"Headaches" is the chief complaint. Acne was the problem last year for 17-year-old Michelle. Otherwise her history is unremarkable. What's causing these daily headaches?