ABSTRACT
@#Congenital heart disease (CHD) is a series of structural cardiac abnormalities resulting from abnormal fetal heart development. With the prolongation of survival time, their cognitive function problems begin to be concerned. From fetus period to adulthood, people with complex CHD are more likely to have abnormalities in brains. Children with complex CHD have a significantly increased risk of developmental disorders in cognitive functions, such as intelligence, attention and psychosocial disorders. These diseases persist into their adulthood. Adults with CHD have earlier neurocognitive decline, poorer performance in intelligence, executive function, attention and academic achievement, and are more likely to have mood disorders, higher incidence of mental disorders and lower quality of life. This paper reviews the studies on cognitive function of adult patients with CHD from the dimension of the whole life cycle.
ABSTRACT
mTOR is a serine/threonine kinase composed of multiple protein components. Intracellular signaling of mTOR complexes is involved in many of physiological functions including cell survival, proliferation and differentiation through the regulation of protein synthesis in multiple cell types. During brain development, mTOR-mediated signaling pathway plays a crucial role in the process of neuronal and glial differentiation and the maintenance of the stemness of neural stem cells. The abnormalities in the activity of mTOR and its downstream signaling molecules in neural stem cells result in severe defects of brain developmental processes causing a significant number of brain disorders, such as pediatric brain tumors, autism, seizure, learning disability and mental retardation. Understanding the implication of mTOR activity in neural stem cells would be able to provide an important clue in the development of future brain developmental disorder therapies.