Environmental factors and disturbances of brain development

Foetal and neonatal brain is under the influence of environmental factors from maternal and extra-maternal origin. Based on the available data, these environmental factors can be classified into three arbitrary groups: (i) factors and maternal status with a demonstrated deleterious effect on the foetal brain (i.e. ethanol, cocaine, some drugs including anticonvulsants, some viral infections, maternal diabetes, untreated maternal phenylketonuria); (ii) factors highly suspected to interfere with foetal brain development (i.e. lead and other heavy metals, some drugs like benzodiazepines, nicotine); (iii) factors which have been shown to be safe for the developing brain in the available studies (i.e. low to moderate doses of caffeine, methadone). However, most of these studies do not address the potential risk of environmental factors on minimal to moderate cognitive and behavioural disturbances. Finally, the impact of the neonatal environment on brain development in very pre-term infants is probably underestimated.