[Neurotrophic factors and autoantibodies to them as molecular predictors of cerebral dysfunctions].

A complex of clinical and immunochemical studies was made in patients with chronic brain ischemia and ischemic stroke and in neonatal infants with CNS dysfunctions and retarded intrauterine development. Enzyme immunoassay was used to measure the levels of brain proteins with trophic properties--S100b, the major protein myelin, lectins CSL, R1, and the levels of primary and antiidiotypic antibodies to these proteins in the biological fluids of the patients. The findings suggest that the study brain proteins and autoimmune processes against these factors are involved in the mechanisms of the pathogenesis of the diseases in question and they enable changes and variations in the levels of neurotropic factors and their autoantibodies to be considered as predictors of brain ischemia and perinatal cerebral lesions.

[Adaptation of newborn infants with very low birth weight].

The clinical and metabolic adaptation to extrauterine life in preterm was comprehensively evaluated in newborns with 28-34 weeks of gestation. A high incidence of aggravating factors that underlie the development of chronic fetal hypoxia has been revealed. The early neonatal events comprised impairment of cerebral flow, jaundice, oedema, respiratory disorders, infectious toxicosis, the manifestation rate being inversely proportional to the gestational age.

[Adaptation of the cardiac activity in healthy newborn infants during the first 5 days after birth according to the hours of life].

It has been revealed for the first time that adaptation of cardiac activity in normal neonates of the first five days of life is wavy in nature. At the same time the load of the right heart reduced during the first 12 hours and from 42 to 60 hours and increased from 15 to 39 hours and from 63 to 72 hours of the children's life. As a result of the establishment of the pulmonary circulation, the load of the right heart appreciably declined on day five after birth as compared with the first hour of the neonates' life.

[Effects of hypoxia on the functional state of the thyroid gland in premature infants of different gestational age].

Altogether 98 premature children of different gestation age were examined for the content of T3, T4 and TTH in serum of funic and venous blood on days 3, 5-7 and 30 and part of the children on day 60 of life. All the children were diagnosed to have hypothyroid condition, whose depth and duration were determined by gestation age, by the degree of hypoxia and gravity of the infectious process. With a purpose of the replacement therapy, 12 children were administered thyroidin in a dose of 5 micrograms per kg bw.

[Status of the blood-brain barrier in newborn infants of various gestational ages in the normal state and in pathology].

The blood-brain barrier (BBB) was studied in 76 neonates of different gestation age in health and disease by means of detecting specific alpha-1-globulin in blood serum with the aid of ELISA. It has been established that by week 28 of the intrauterine development the process of the structural and functional establishment of the BBB had been over as evidenced by the lack of specific alpha-1-globulin in umbilical blood of the neonates of the given gestation age. Severe chronic intrauterine hypoxia combined with acute hypoxia resulted in brain damage and BBB opening for antigen penetration in the direction brain-blood.