Brown adipose tissue changes in anencephalic infants. Image analysis study.

Perirenal brown adipose tissue was studied in 49 liveborn anencephalic infants of appropriate weight, whose lifespan ranged from 2 hours to 6 days. An additional series of 187 full-term infants was used as control. Morphological evidence of active and marked BAT lipolysis was found in large number of anencephalic infants suggesting that activation of BAT metabolism leading to lipolysis in the newborn does not depend on a diencephalic pathway but on peripheral mechanisms. Image analysis study did not sustain significant differences in the intrauterine storage of lipids in brown adipose tissue cells for the anencephalic and control infants who died within 24 hours of birth.