Postnatal Maturation of the Local Cerebral Circulation

Abstract

In most mammals, especially primates, the brain is highly underdeveloped and relatively undifferentiated at birth, and a major portion of its anatomical, chemical, and functional differentiation is achieved postnatally early in its extrauterine life. It is to be expected that changes in the cerebral circulation accompany and reflect the maturational and developmental processes. Since periods of rapid change are generally quite vulnerable to all sorts of noxious influences, it can further be assumed that there are pathologic conditions which are associated with and, perhaps, even consequences of aberrations in the pattern of development of the cerebral circulation. In order to establish the normal pattern of postnatal development of the cerebral circulation, local blood flow of the individual structures of the brain was studied as a function of postnatal age.