Brain development

Many chemicals cause a decrease in brain size during fetal development. Changes in brain size can be caused in various ways. A decreased brain weight may be a consequence of general undernutrition caused by effects on placental functioning. Examples of other possible mechanisms are inhibition of cell multiplication or cell growth, increased cell death, disrupted trophic effects induced by changes in cell maturation and neurochemistry. 

In the assessment of human development, head circumference appears to be a 

2 Effects on biochemical measures of brain cell growth and maturation 

Ornithine decarboxylase activity in the brain reflects its pattern of 

Changes in brain structure can occur in many different ways. For instance, neuronal death or disruptions in neuronal maturation (see also section 3.2), differentiation (see also section 3.7), migration, synaptic formation, glial and neurochemical development (see also section 3.4), can all have effects on brain structure. 

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It is known that the brain is one of the most sensitive sites of action of steroids in utero, and recently there have been suggestions that EDs may affect normal brain development and behaviour. For example, it has been alleged that in utero exposure to polychlorinated biphenyl compounds (PCBs) resulted in adverse effects on neurologic and intellectual function (memory and attention) in young children born to women who had eaten PCB contaminated fish in the USA." It has also been speculated that exposure to environmental pollutants with steroidal activity may be infinencing human sexual development and sexually controlled behavioiir." ... 

LPA LPA Ubiquitous Gj/o. Gq, G12/13 Proliferation, survival, neurite retraction, brain development... 

Tran PB, Miller RJ (2003) Chemokine receptors signposts to brain development and disease. Nat Rev Neurosci 4 444—455... 

Brustle O, Spiro AC, Karram K, Choudhary K, Okabe S, McKay RD (1997) In vitro-generated neural precursors participate in mammalian brain development. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 94 14809-14814... 

Weinberger, DR (1987) Implications of normal brain development for the pathogenesis of schizophrenia. Arch. Gen. Psychiat. 44 660-669. 

Mammals lack the ability to synthesize astaxanthin or convert dietary astaxanthin into vitamin A. Unlike p-carotene, astaxanthin has no pro-vitamin activity in these animals. Astaxanthin has been shown in both in vitro and in a study with human subjects to be effective for the prevention of the oxidation of low-density protein, suggesting that it can be used to prevent arteriosclerosis, coronary artery disease, and ischemic brain development. A number of astaxanthin health products are under study. 

Dussault JH, Ruel J 1987 Thyroid hormones and brain development. Annu Rev Physiol 49 321-334... 

Chandra SV, Murthy RC, Saxena DK, et al. 1983. Effects of pre- and postnatal combined exposure to Pb and Mn on brain development in rats. Ind Health 21 273-279. 

The Brain Development as an Information Store The Human Phenotype. 379... 

The brain allowed greater and greater use of the environment since it, unlike the genes, had information from the environment, made useful in a rapid operational way and hence made possible environmental control by organisms. The brain developed its own coded information. 

Bauer H. Glucose transporters in mammalian brain development. In Introduction to the Blood-Brain Barrier (Partridge WM, Ed.), 1st Edn. Cambridge Cambridge University Press 1998, 175-187. 

Adhesion molecules are indispensable components of nervous tissue. They adhere cell membranes to each other with varying degrees of strength and translate adhesion into cellular responses via signal-transduction pathways (see, for example, [45]). The major classes of adhesion molecules, the integrins, IgCAMs and cadherins, act cooperatively [46] and in concert to coordinate brain development and maturation and, in adulthood, to maintain the normal tissue architecture. 

He, X. and Rosenfeld, M. G. Mechanisms of complex transcriptional regulation implications for brain development. Neuron 7 183-196,1991. 

Espinosa de los Monteros, A., Zhang, M. and de Vellis, J. 02A progenitor cells transplanted into the neonatal rat brain develop into oligodendrocytes but not astrocytes Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 90 50-54,1993. 

Cremer, J. E. Substrate utilization and brain development. /. Cereb. Blood Flow Metab. 2 394-N07,1982. 

Patel, M. S., Johnson, C. A., Rajan, R. etal. The metabolism of ketone bodies in developing human brain development of ketone-body-utilizing enzymes and ketone bodies as precursors for lipid synthesis. /. Neurochem. 25 905-908, 1975. 

McEwen, B. S. Gonadal steroid influences on brain development and sexual differentiation. In Reproductive Physiology IV. Ed Greep, R. University Park University Park Press, 1983, pp99-145. 

Senior Investigator, Myelin Brain Development Section... 

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