The prevalence of congenital heart disease points to the need for a better understanding of how it influences neurodevelopment. New in JNeurosci, Jung-Hoon Kim and Catherine Limperopoulos, from Children’s National Hospital, led a study examining brain network disruptions that may be linked to congenital heart disease.
Compared to publicly accessible brain imaging data from healthy newborns, babies with heart failure had atypical networks associated with sensory perception, movement, and social behavior. After corrective cardiovascular surgery, these brain networks were improved.
What’s happening is that before these babies go into open heart surgery, there are differences in how brain regions connect and communicate with each other. These differences may result from altered oxygen and blood flow…