Cell Death and Plasticity in Developmental Brain Injury 9th Hershey Conference on Developmental Brain Injury, St. Michaels, Md., June 2014. Special Topic Issue: Developmental Neuroscience 2015, Vol. 37, No. 4-5

The immature brain is vulnerable to stressors that may produce brain damage, leading to neurological dysfunction in survivors. The publication provides new insights into the mechanisms of injury and neuroprotection for developmental brain injuries and functional outcomes. Many aspects of neural progenitors in the response to and recovery from neonatal brain injuries are highlighted as well as reviews of preclinical models of encephalopathy of prematurity, Fyn in neurodevelopment and brain injury and perinatal infection. Further articles include information on the ethics of treatment of neonatal hypoxic-ischemic (HI) encephalopathy, hypoxia gene signaling and other caspase signaling pathways, modulation of p53 and arachidonic acid mechanisms for therapeutic benefit, and neurodevelopmental outcomes of experimental HI. Translational science contributions inform on important clinical areas, including ventilation-induced brain injury, in vivo monitoring of cerebral hemodynamics during HI and hypothermia and the effect of sepsis/inflammation in blocking the therapeutic effect of hypothermia in a neonatal HI model. This special issue is recommended to clinicians and basic and translational scientists who are interested in the developing nervous system, the mechanisms of injury to identify new therapeutic targets and the effect of both endogenous and exogenous cell-based attempts to support recovery from injury.