EDITORIAL article
Front. Pediatr.
Sec. Neonatology
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fped.2025.1650456
This article is part of the Research TopicThe Effects of Emerging and Commonly Used Medications on the Developing BrainView all 6 articles
Editorial: "The Effects of Emerging and Commonly Used Medications on the Developing Brain"
Provisionally accepted
- 1University of Virginia, Charlottesville, United States
- 2The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, United States
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medications. The neonatal period, particularly in preterm infants, is a time of rapid brain development and is highly vulnerable to the environment and exposures during his critical window. The goal of this Research Topic was to assemble a group of original research papers and reviews on the most up-to-date information and research on effects of commonly used and emerging medications on the vulnerable, developing brain.In this issue, we present five manuscripts on topics ranging from preclinical models examining the effect of medications on neonatal brain injury to treatment of refractory agitation in neonates to the treatment of infantile spasms in patients with trisomy 21. Lim et al. published a study on the pharmacokinetics of 7,8-dihydroxyflavone (7, in a neonatal mouse model of hypoxic-ischemic brain injury. This study aimed to test the impact of sex on pharmacokinetics of 7,8 DHF, given that this therapy has shown differing neuroprotection females and males in preclinical models. The pharmacokinetic analysis in this study demonstrates no difference in the pharmacokinetics of 7,8 DHF in males and females but that hypoxic-ischemic brain injury itself was associated with reduced clearance of the drug. These findings will help guide future studies of this promising neuroprotective therapy in neonatal brain injury.Another preclinical study by Witherspoon, et al. in this issue examined the effect of two newer generation anti-seizures medications (ASM) on cell death in the neonatal rodent brain.Several ASMs are associated with neurotoxicity and long-term behavioral changes. This study tested the effects of brivaracetam (BRV) and perampanel (PER) on cell death in the neonatal rat brain and found that neither drug exhibited signs of neurotoxicity. These promising findings suggest that these drugs may offer a safer option for the treatment of early-life seizures. This Research Topic issue assembled a wide-ranging collection of papers on the most up-to-date information and research on effects of commonly used and emerging medications on the vulnerable, developing brain
Keywords: Developing brain, Medications, neonate, neurodevelopment, Infant
Received: 19 Jun 2025; Accepted: 23 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Burnsed and Chavez-Valdez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jennifer Burnsed, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, United States
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