Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- NEURODEVELOPMENTAL MECHANISMS IN PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
- Part One Basic Mechanisms in Prenatal, Perinatal, and Postnatal Neurodevelopmental Processes and Their Associations with High-Risk Conditions and Adult Mental Disorders
- 1 Principles of Neurobehavioral Teratology
- 2 The Neurodevelopmental Consequences of Very Preterm Birth: Brain Plasticity and Its Limits
- 3 Neurodevelopment During Adolescence
- 5 Prenatal Risk Factors for Schizophrenia
- 5 Obstetric Complications and Neurodevelopmental Mechanisms in Schizophrenia
- 6 Maternal Influences on Prenatal Neural Development Contributing to Schizophrenia
- Part Two Animal Models of Neurodevelopment and Psychopathology
- Part Three Models of the Nature of Genetic and Environmental Influences on the Developmental Course of Psychopathology
- Part Four The Neurodevelopmental Course of Illustrative High-Risk Conditions and Mental Disorders
- Index
- References
1 - Principles of Neurobehavioral Teratology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 August 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of Contributors
- Preface
- NEURODEVELOPMENTAL MECHANISMS IN PSYCHOPATHOLOGY
- Part One Basic Mechanisms in Prenatal, Perinatal, and Postnatal Neurodevelopmental Processes and Their Associations with High-Risk Conditions and Adult Mental Disorders
- 1 Principles of Neurobehavioral Teratology
- 2 The Neurodevelopmental Consequences of Very Preterm Birth: Brain Plasticity and Its Limits
- 3 Neurodevelopment During Adolescence
- 5 Prenatal Risk Factors for Schizophrenia
- 5 Obstetric Complications and Neurodevelopmental Mechanisms in Schizophrenia
- 6 Maternal Influences on Prenatal Neural Development Contributing to Schizophrenia
- Part Two Animal Models of Neurodevelopment and Psychopathology
- Part Three Models of the Nature of Genetic and Environmental Influences on the Developmental Course of Psychopathology
- Part Four The Neurodevelopmental Course of Illustrative High-Risk Conditions and Mental Disorders
- Index
- References
Summary
The first documented use of the word teratology was the title of a 1678 discourse of prodigies and wonders (OED, 1989). Taken from the Greek root, τέρασ, meaning prodigy, portent, omen, or wonder (Bauer, 1957, 1979), the original connotation in Homer and in the New Testament was of divine communication: “Unless you see signs and wonders you will not believe” (John 4:48). The word did not acquire its connotation of deformed or monstrous until the mid-nineteenth century, when it first appeared in 1842 in a dictionary of scientific terms indicating the study of monsters or anomalies. Shortly thereafter, the term teratogenesis appeared in Robley Dunglison's fifteenth edition of a medical lexicon to indicate the study of deformities in the organization in plants and animals. Nineteenth-century physicians and scientists were well schooled in the Attic Greek of Homer and likely would have known that for the Greeks, deformities in infants were taken as a sign of divine warning, displeasure, or retribution. Moreover, that monstrous births were portents of displeasure and disaster also influenced European thinking. During the Middle Ages, births of malformed infants were significant events thought to predict catastrophes and “signs of punishment at hand” (Pare's Chyrugery, 1579, quoted in Warkany, 1977). Hence, in their choice of the root τέρασ, nineteenth-century physicians brought together the notion of portent with the emphasis on monstrosity and horror to the study of unexpected and poorly understood malformations.
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- Neurodevelopmental Mechanisms in Psychopathology , pp. 3 - 33Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2003
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