THE LATER GROWTH OF THE BRAIN AND ITS VULNERABILITY

Abstract

In recent years there has been an increasing interest in a new kind of vulnerability of the developing brain which is concerned with disturbances and distortion of its later growth program, rather than with gross morphological anomaly, destructive lesions, or metabolic error. Thus there has grown up the concept of heightened sensitivity of the brain to growth retardation during its "growth spurt," a period arbitrarily defined as the time when the brain is passing through its most rapid phase of growth. The following remarks represent a personal view of the present situation and are amplified fled elsewhere. Almost all the evidence for the special vulnerability of the brain growth spurt comes from experimental animals, usually rats, in whom nutritional growth restriction has been imposed during gestational, suckling and postweaning periods, or selectively in any one or two of these.