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Hydrocephalus and Malformations of the Central Nervous System

  • Chapter
Fetal and Neonatal Pathology

Abstract

The central nervous system (CNS) is ectodermal in origin and is precocious in development. These are two fundamental facts in the development of the CNS. The ectoderm on either side of the midline in the bilaminar embryonic disc is destined, from an early stage, to form the nervous system (“neurectoderm”), and even before the disc becomes folded and begins to form an embryo the neurectoderm begins to sink below the surface as a result of the raising on either side of ridges—the neural crests. The summits of the neural crests begin to fuse in what eventually will become the neck region 22 days after fertilisation and fusion spreads cranially and caudally until the whole of the neurectoderm has sunk below the surface to form the neural tube; with the exception of the neuropores this closure is complete by the 28th day after conception. The neuropores close 1–2 days later. The cells at the summit of the neural crest separate off to develop into the posterior root ganglia, chromaffin cells of the sympathetic nervous system and various other cells. After the neural tube has developed, the mesodermal somites give rise to the bodies and neural arches of the vertebrae, the latter arching over the tube to meet in the midline behind it.

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Authors
  1. K. M. Laurence
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. John Radcliffe Maternity Hospital, Headington, Oxford, OX3 9DU, UK

    Jean W. Keeling MB, BS, FRCPath (Consultant Paediatric Pathologist) (Consultant Paediatric Pathologist)

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© 1987 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Laurence, K.M. (1987). Hydrocephalus and Malformations of the Central Nervous System. In: Keeling, J.W. (eds) Fetal and Neonatal Pathology. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3523-4_23

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3523-4_23

  • Publisher Name: Springer, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4471-3525-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-3523-4

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