Cerebral palsy is also more common in premature babies and can be caused by brain injury related to meningitis or severe dehydration. But the cause of the majority of cases is unknown. She set out to find out why and to see if there was a way to prevent this from ever happening. The key seems to be inflammation, she reported in the Annals of Neurology. Nelson said in a telephone interview.
Inflammation is the body's response to everything from a bump on the head to a bacterial invasion.
Cytokines send out signals that cause immune cells to rush in and repair the damage or eat up the invader. But the swelling that this causes can be as bad as the original hurt, and, in the case of autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis or lupus, perfectly healthy tissue is attacked. In addition, Nelson said, it has recently been found that cytokines are important for the normal development of the infant brain. These would include the blood coagulation factors. She said brain images of some of babies with Cerebral Palsy seemed to show they had suffered mini-strokes.