The Placenta and Neurodisability, 2nd Edition

Many neurodevelopmental deficits originate in the perinatal period and there is increasing awareness of the need to look to early life, including prenatal life, to understand the origins of cognitive development and risk of neurodegenerative and psychiatric diseases.

This comprehensive and authoritative book is structured in a logical way from pathology to clinical outcome. Throughout, information from the basic sciences is placed within the clinical context, and there is excellent use of illustrative figures and images. Written by leading obstetricians, neonatologists, paediatricians and pathologists, this volume collates the ever-increasing evidence, both pathological and epidemiological, for the critical role of the utero-placenta in neurodisability, both at term and preterm. It encapsulates new advances in antepartum and perinatal imaging, new clinical aspects of fetal compromise, recent evidence of endocrine, haematological and inflammatory origins of utero-placental dysfunction, and possible cerebro-protective interventions. This text is essential reading for everyone concerned with child development and the in utero origins of neurological disability.

Written by leading obstetricians, neonatologists, paediatricians and pathologists
Discusses the role of placenta in the pathophysiology of CNS
Examines recent evidence of endocrine, haematological and inflammatory origins of utero-placental dysfunction
Reviews latest advances in antepartum and perinatal imaging

Readership

Obstetricians, neonatologists, pathologists and basic scientists.

Clinics in Developmental Medicine Series

Ian Crocker (Editor)

Dr Ian Crocker

Ian Crocker is a senior scientist within the Maternal and Fetal Health Research Centre in Manchester, UK. He is an NIHR Fellow, with a 10-year research focus on the human placenta.

He is a member of the Maternal Medicine Clinical Studies Group, part of the Comprehensive Clinical Research Network, treasurer of the Blair Bell Society, the research arm of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, editorial board member of the journal Placenta, and 2006 recipient of the prestigious Gabor Than Award from the International Federation of Placental Associations, for his outstanding contributions to placental research.

Martin Bax (Editor)

Martin Bax

Martin Bax was one of the pioneers of community paediatrics and brought a scholarly approach to the subject. He is Emeritus Reader in Child Health at Imperial College London and Honorary Consultant Paediatrician at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital campus.

Dr Bax was for many years senior editor of Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology and was chairperson of the European Academy of Childhood Disability and President of the Society for the Study of Behavioural Phenotypes (SSBP).

He co-edited the third edition of Aicardi’s Diseases of the Nervous System in Childhood, Comorbidities in Developmental Disorders and Visual Impairment in Children due to Damage to the Brain.

Foreword
Preface
1. Placental pathology and perinatal brain injury
Raymond Redline
2. Abnormal Placental Phenotypes
Colin Sibley and Michelle Desforges
3. Aberrant placental endocrinology, fetal growth and neurodevelopment
Jayne Charnoc and Melissa Westwood
4. The rheology of utero-placental and feto-placental blood flow
Ian Crocker
5. Inflammation and Placentation
Karen Racicot and Gil Mor
6. Infections and the fetal inflammatory response
Donald Peebles and Catherine James
7. Cerebral ischaemia and white matter injury
Suresh Victor and Michael Weindling
8. In utero imaging of the human placenta
Emma Ingram and Ed Johnstone
9. Cerebral Function and Fetal Growth Restriction
Irene Cetin and Valentina Brusati
10. Placental programming and mental illness: fetal growth and schizophrenia
Kathryn Abel and Martin Allin
11. Cerebro-therapeutics
Philip Steer
12. Summing up and unsolved problems
Karin Nelson

'I personally found this text interesting because it challenged me to think about how placental pathology may provide clues to mechanisms of fetal brain injury. Neonatologists, pathologist, obstetricians, neonatal neurologists, and basic scientists will all find something of interest in this edition. Above all this book reminds us that the placenta is an active participant in pregnancy and fetal brain development and is a frontier rich for future investigation.' Margie A. Ream, Journal of Child Neurology, 2016

'The book is a recommended reading for colleagues interested in the very complex interplay and relationships of maternal, placental, and fetal factors relevant for fetal brain development.' Eugen Boltshauser, Neuropediatrics, 2016

'The book is composed of 12 fairly independent reviews on various aspects of placental pathology and its contribution to neurodevelopment. The first chapter is an overview of the subject and the last chapter is a summary and review of unsolved problems by Dr. Nelson. Chapters on inflammation, infection, fetal growth restriction, and in-utero imaging are examples of the topics the book covers. An interesting chapter on cerebro-therapeutics discusses some of the common therapies used today, such as magnesium sulfate, cooling, antibiotics, and even the approach to the breech presentation, although much of this clinical discussion is rather superficial. There are some good color plates at the end of the book.' Jay Goldsmith, MD, Tulane University School of Medicine