Effects of malnutrition on the maturing central nervous system.

During recent years, more and more data have been accumulated implicating early 
malnutrition in subsequent small stature and behavioral abnormalities. These studies can 
be divided into two large categories: one dealing with cellular and 
biochemical changes at a tissue level and one dealing with functional 
changes within the nervous system as measured by changes in various 
modes of behavior. This chapter will attempt to review the studies 
in both of these broad categories, which have led to the 
present concept that malnutrition during the growing period will permanently retard 
growth, resulting in a stunted individual, and markedly retard psychologic development, 
resulting in an individual with permanently altered behaviors. We shall first 
consider the normal cellular and biochemical development of the central nervous 
system; second, we shall examine how malnutrition alters these cellular and 
biochemical processes; and finally, we shall review the evidence that implicates 
early malnutrition with alterations in later behavior and ability to learn. 
