Brain Malformations

Abstract

Brain malformations are extremely polymorphous, and individual cases very often escape rigid categorization. Moreover, several malformations are frequently associated with one another in individual patients, and many are comprised within complex multiorgan syndromes. Although some believe that a purely descriptive diagnostic approach is advantageous [1], classifications are useful to practicing clinicians to make sense of what they see and to approach their patients on the basis of a logical framework. Neuroradiologists have a wellknown propensity for classifications, basically because MRI has proved to be a very powerful and effective tool to attempt radiologic-pathologic correlations. However, classification schemes are continuously challenged by new advances in the understanding of the pathologies they attempt to describe. This has been the case with many disease processes involving the central nervous system (CNS), and especially with brain malformations. Knowledge of the basic molecular and genetic processes that direct normal brain development and, when deranged, result in congenital abnormalities has literally boomed in the past decade.