Microlissencephaly (MLIS) is a rare congenital brain disorder that combines severe microcephaly (small head) with lissencephaly (smooth brain surface due to absent sulci and gyri). Microlissencephaly is a heterogeneous disorder, i.e. it has many different causes and a variable clinical course. Microlissencephaly is a malformation of cortical development (MCD) that occurs due to failure of neuronal migration between the third and fifth month of gestation as well as stem cell population abnormalities. Numerous genes have been found to be associated with microlissencephaly, however, the pathophysiology is still not completely understood. The combination of lissencephaly with severe congenital microcephaly is designated as microlissencephaly only when the cortex is abnormally thick. If such combination exists with a normal cortical thickness (2.5 to 3 mm), it is known as "microcephaly with simplified gyral pattern" (MSGP). Both MLIS and MSGP have a much more severe clinical course than microcephaly alone. They are inherited in autosomal recessive manner. Prior to 2000, the term "microlissencephaly" was used to designate both MLIS and MSGP. Types
Microlissencephaly is one of five subtypes of lissencephaly. Microlissencephaly, in turn, can be subclassified based on imaging and clinical picture into 4 types:

MLIS1
Microlissencephaly Type A or Norman-Roberts syndrome (NRS): a microlissencephaly with thick cortex without infratentorial anomalies.Other clinical features may include: a bitemporal narrowing, a broad nasal root. There is postnatal growth retardation, severe mental retardation associated with pyramidal spasticity and epilepsy. This entity could be identical to "lissencephaly with cerebellar hypoplasia type B" (LCHb), and therefore linked to mutations in RELN gene.
A PhD thesis has estimated the prevalence of microlissencepahly in southeastern Hungary between July 1992 and June 2006 to be a case every 91,000 live births (0.11:10,000). History
In 1976, the first syndrome with MLIS was reported, now known as Norman–Roberts syndrome (MLIS type A). The Barth type (MLIS type B) was for the first time described in 1982 in two siblings who died soon after birth. == References ==