Abstracts of Postersessions

Special morning lecture Normal pre- and postnatal brain development J. Barkovich, San Francisco, USA The central nervous system derives from the dorsal epiblast of the vertebrate embryo, and is induced by a combination of signals originating in the region of Hensen’s node in the posterior margin of the early embryo1. After many steps, a neural tube is formed that subsequently develops a series of vesicles at its anterior (rostral) end. These three vesicles are designated the prosencephalon or fore-brain (which soon divides into diencephalon and telencephalon), the mesencephalon (midbrain), and the rhombencephalon (hindbrain), which divides into the rostral metencephalon (pons and cerebel-lum) and caudal myelencephalon (medulla oblongata). This differentiation along the anteroposterior (AP) axis (also called the rostral-caudal axis) is called patterning, a name given to the early differentia-tion of the neural tube2. Patterning similarly occurs in the dorsal-ventral axis; these two orthogonal process result in the development of the protomap of the developing brain3, 4. From this point onward, the brain develops as a result of the establishment of germinal zones, where cells are generated, cell migration, development and navigation of neurites through the developing brain, establishment o