A textbook on the principles of neurology cannot catalog all the hereditary and congenital developmental abnormalities that affect the nervous system. For such details, the interested reader should refer to several excellent monographs. Three that the authors consult are Brett’s Pediatric Neurology, Berg’s Principles of Child Neurology, and Lyon and Evrard’s Neuropediatrie. These are supplemented by special atlases of congenital malformations mentioned further on. In this chapter, we sketch only the major groups and discuss in detail a few of the more common entities. The classification in Table 37-1 adheres to a grouping in accordance with the main presenting abnormality. Represented here are the common problems that lead families to seek consultation with the pediatric neurologist: (1) structural defects of the cranium, spine, and limbs, and of eyes, nose, ears, jaws, and skin; (2) disturbed motor function, taking the form of retarded development or abnormal movements; (3) epilepsy; and (4) developmental delay—mental retardation. The following discussion focuses on each of these clinical states.
A majority of the disorders in this group is the result of a genetic error, including those with a specific chromosomal abnormality. One has only to walk through an institution for the developmentally delayed to appreciate the remarkable number and diversity of dysmorphisms that attend abnormalities of the nervous system. Smith, in the third edition of his monograph on the patterns of human malformations, listed 345 distinctive syndromes; in the fourth edition (edited by KL Jones [1988]), many new ones were added. Indeed, a normal-appearing and severely cognitvely impaired individual stands out in such a crowd and will frequently be found to have an inherited metabolic defect or birth injury.
The intimate relationship between the growth and development of the cranium and that of the brain is likely responsible for many of the associations in maldevelopment. In embryonic life the most rapidly growing parts of the neural tube induce unique changes in, and at the same time are influenced by, the overlying mesoderm (a process termed induction); hence abnormalities in the formation of skull, orbits, nose, and spine are regularly associated with anomalies of the brain and spinal cord. During early fetal life the cranial bones and vertebral arches enclose and protect the developing brain and spinal cord. Throughout the period of rapid brain growth, as pressure is exerted on the inner table of the skull, the latter accommodates to the increasing size of the brain. This adaptation is facilitated by the membranous fontanels, which remain open until maximal brain growth has been attained; only then do they ossify (close). In addition, stature is apparently controlled by the nervous system, as shown by the fact that a majority of mentally retarded individuals are also stunted physically to a varying degree. Thus disorders of craniovertebral development assume importance not merely because of the physical disfigurement but also because they often reflect an abnormality of the underlying brain and spinal cord, whereby they become the main diagnostic signs of the maldevelopment.
Certain alterations in size and shape of the head in the infant, child, or even the adult, always signify a pathologic process that affected the brain before birth or in early infancy. Because the size of the cranium reflects the size of the brain, the tape measure is one of the most useful tools in pediatric neurology—no examination in a neurologically affected child is complete without a measurement of the circumference of the head. Graphs of head circumference in males and females from birth to 18 years of age were compiled by Nellhaus and are, of course, of great use to pediatricians. A newborn whose head circumference is below the third percentile for age and sex and whose fontanels are closed may be judged to have a developmental abnormality of the brain. A head that is normal in size at term but fails to keep pace with body length (microcephaly) reflects a later failure of growth and maturation of the cerebral hemispheres (microencephaly).
Enlargement of the Head (Macrocephaly)