Neurodevelopmental disorders

Faulty Wiring and/or Developmental Delay. Remember that neurotransmission moves through brain circuits. Some mental illnesses may be caused by misconnections in the circuitry that can result in the brain s equivalent of crosstalk that occurs when telephone lines are crossed. Examples of this problem are the so-called neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, certain forms of mental retardation, and possibly schizophrenia. 

Although the research is difficult to interpret, many psychiatrists are convinced that schizophrenia is fundamentally a neurodevelopmental disorder characterised by cognitive deficits (Bilder et al. 2006). 

Q2 ADHD is a neurodevelopmental disorder that affects children s development. The disorder tends to run in families. It is characterized by inattention, impulsiveness, uncooperativeness, aggressiveness and hyperactivity. The behaviour is not appropriate for the age of the child. There are three subtypes hyperac-tive/impulsive, inattentive and combined. Many children with this disorder are impulsive and disruptive, cannot sit quietly and continually seek attention. 

Geier MR, Geier DA. Neurodevelopmental disorders after thiomersal containing vaccines a brief communication. Exp Biol Med 2003 228 660-4. 

Rett syndrome is a neurodevelopmental disorder in females, which is characterized by loss of speech, stereotypical movements of hands, microcephaly, seizures, and... 

Lesion models are based on the idea that schizophrenia is, in part, a neurodegenerative or neurodevelopmental disorder. These lesions are generally neurotoxic, and have variable response to antipsychotic drugs (Marcotte et al., 2001). Recently, a novel model was studied in which pregnant mouse... 

Ray JG, Papaioannou A, loannidis G, Adachi JD. Anticonvulsant drug use and low bone mass in adults with neurodevelopmental disorders. QJM 2002 95(4) 219-23. 

In 2001 the Immunization Safety Review Committee of the Institute of Medicine issued a report on thiomersal-containing vaccines and neurodevelopmental disorders (104). The committee concluded that although the hypothesis that exposure to thiomersal-containing... 

Immunization Safety Review. Thimerosal-Containing Vaccines and Neurodevelopmental Disorders. Washington, DC National Academy Press, 2001. 

Very many chemicals are recognized teratogens in animals a significantly smaller subset of these is known or suspected to be developmental neurotoxicants in humans. Some of the more significant of the latter group include ethanol, which causes a constellation of effects ranging from fetal alcohol syndrome to alcohol-related neurodevelopmental disorder maternal smoking of tobacco (fetal tobacco syndrome) excess vitamins A and D heavy metals, particularly... 

Geier DA, Geier MR. An assessment of the impact of thimerosal on childhood neurodevelopmental disorders. Pediatr RehabE 2003 6 97-102. 

NSHPT involves multiglandular parathyroid hyperplasia and affected children under the age of 6 months develop severe, symptomatic hypercalcemia with bony changes of hyperparathyroidism that increase in severity with time after birth. Delay in effective treatment can lead to a devastating neurodevelopmental disorder, if it is not fatal [51]. Some forms of neonatal hyperparathyroidism, involving either a de novo or paternal inheritance of a mutated CASR allele, present with milder, less symptomatic disease that can be transient. 

Weinberger D. Schizophrenia as a neurodevelopmental disorder. In Weinberger DR, Hirsch SR, eds. Schizophrenia. Oxford, Blackwell Science, 2003 326-348. 

Engbers, HM, Berger, R, van Hasselt, P, de Koning, T, de Sain-van der Velden, MG, Kroes, HY, and Visser, G. (2008) Yield of additional metabolic studies in neurodevelopmental disorders. Ann Neurol 64 212-217. 

The Reelin gene has been implicated in the aetiology of neurodevelopmental disorders such as schizophrenia and autism (Abrahams Geschwind, 2008 Fatemi, 2005 Keller Persico, 2003). Interestingly, a common variant of the Reelin gene has been found to increase schizophrenia risk only in women (Shifman et al., 2008), confirming that gene-sex interactions can be important for neurodevelopmental disorders. 

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