Neonatal Brain MRI and Motor Outcome at School Age in Childrenwith Neonatal Encephalopathy: A Review of Personal Experience

摘要

The aim of this paper is to review (i) thespectrum of neuromotor function at school age inchildren who had been born full-term andpresented with neonatal encephalopathy (NE) andlow Apgar scores and (ii) the relation between thepresence/absence of such difficulties and neonatalbrain MRI. Motor outcome appears to be mainlyrelated to the severity of basal ganglia andinternal capsule involvement. Severe basal ganglialesions were always associated with the mostsevere outcome, microcephaly, tetraplegia, andsevere global delay, whereas more discrete basalganglia lesions were associated with athetoidcerebral palsy, with normal cognitive developmentor minor neuro-motor abnormalities. Whitematter lesions were associated with abnormalmotor outcome only if the internal capsule wasinvolved. Children with moderate white matterchanges but normal internal capsule, had normalmotor outcome at school age.