Topography of Lesions in Newborn and Infant Brains following Cardiac Arrest and Resuscitation

Abstract

The brain lesions produced by temporary arrest of circulation in a newborn and an 11-month-old infant are described. In the newborn, two periods of arrest occurred, one on the fifth day after birth and the second a few days before death on the sixth week. The older infant suffered a single episode of cardiac arrest at the age of 11 months and survived 8 days. In both cases, postmortem examination revealed lesions in spinal cord, in brain stem, and in cerebral hemispheres. This distribution of damage is compared with the patterns of injury produced experimentally by episodes of partial (hypoxia) and total (anoxia) asphyxia in subhuman primates. The coexistence of hemispheral and brain stem nuclear patterns of pathology indicates that both hypoxia and anoxia had occurred in the present cases.