Sunday, July 21, 2013

Pancake brain

The front part of the brain, the forebrain also known as the prosencephalon normally separates into two halves (cerebral hemispheres) during the development of the unborn baby. Failure of the prosencephalon to separate leads to the rare disease, holoprosencephaly (HPE). The prosencephalon may fail to separate to different extents; where failure to separate is complete, alobar HPE results, which is the most severe form of HPE. The brain in alobar HPE resembles a pancake – pancake brain.
Instead of the normal two fluid-filled cavities in the front of the brain, in alobar HPE there is a single abnormal fluid-filled cavity; facial malformation frequently complicates HLE.
Cyclopia, arhinencephaly and DeMyer sequence are some of HPE’s synonyms.
Reference
Situ D, Reifel CW, Smith R, Lyons GW, Temkin R, Harper-Little C, Pang SC. Investigation of a cyclopic, human, term fetus by use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). J Anat, 2002 200(5):431-8. Go to reference

 
Pancakes, developing brain