Neonatal procedural pain can be assessed by computer software that has good sensitivity and specificity to detect facial movements.

Aim: The difficulty in assessing pain during the neonatal period is one of the main obstacles for appropriate analgesia in intensive care units. The aim of this study was to develop and validate computer software to monitor neonatal facial movements of pain in real time.

Methods: The software was developed in the Delphi integrated development environment and provides real-time image analysis during monitoring, based on image recognition of pain-related facial actions.

Newborns with congenital heart diseases: epidemiological data from a single reference center in Brazil.

Objective: to describe the epidemiological data of the population born with the diagnosis of Congenital Heart Disease (CHD); to compare diagnoses made using fetal echocardiography with the findings from postnatal echocardiography or anatomopathological examination of the heart; and to evaluate mortality among newborns that underwent surgical treatment.

Methods: this was a cohort study with information gathered from the medical records of the pregnant women and their newborns diagnosed with CHD during the fetal or postnatal periods, between January 2008 and December 2012. Means, standard deviations and maximum and minimum values were calculated for the quantitative variables.

Assessment of fetal lung maturity by ultrasound: objective study using gray-scale histogram.

Objective: To evaluate lung maturity using ultrasound (US), comparing the subjective and gray-scale histogram (GSH) techniques.

Methods: A total of 77 single pregnancies were evaluated and divided into the following two groups: 11 women of gestational age 28 to 35 + 6 weeks and 66 women ≥ 36 weeks. The women underwent to emergency or planned cesarean section, according to fetal-maternal indications.

Prenatal detection of congenital heart diseases: one-year survey performing a screening protocol in a single reference center in Brazil.

Objective. To describe the experience of a tertiary center in Brazil to which patients are referred whose fetuses are at increased risk for congenital heart diseases (CHDs). Methods.

Neonatal inflammatory pain increases hippocampal neurogenesis in rat pups.

Preterm infants undergo several painful procedures during their stay in neonatal intensive care units. Previous studies suggest that early painful experiences may have an impact on brain development. Here, we used an animal model to investigate the effect of neonatal pain on the generation of new neurons in the dentate gyrus region of the hippocampus.

Fetal alcohol exposure leads to abnormal olfactory bulb development and impaired odor discrimination in adult mice.

Background: Children whose mothers consumed alcohol during pregnancy exhibit widespread brain abnormalities and a complex array of behavioral disturbances. Here, we used a mouse model of fetal alcohol exposure to investigate relationships between brain abnormalities and specific behavioral alterations during adulthood.

Results: Mice drank a 10% ethanol solution throughout pregnancy.

Repetitive nociceptive stimuli in newborn rats do not alter the hippocampal neurogenesis.

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of acute repetitive nociceptive stimuli to newborn rats over neurogenesis rate in the dentate gyrus of hippocampus. Newborn rats were randomly distributed in three groups, according to the type of stimulus received from d 1 to d 7 of life four times per day: acute nociceptive stimuli, tactile stimuli, and none (controls). At d 21 of life, rats received BrdU (5-bromo-2'-deoxyuridine, a marker of cell proliferation), and on d 28, they were killed.