Editorial

At present, diagnostic radiology is a derivative specialty. It merely displays, in vivo, the pathology long familiar to surgeons and pathologists. Radiologists seeking to use their specialty to benefit patients must then derive their expertise from detailed knowledge of prior studies of neuroanatomy, neuropathology, and the natural history of disease. Radiologists confronting congenital anomalies must also review sufficient embryology to appreciate how changes in the conceptus evolve into the often multiple, concurrent structural derangements observed in the infant. In this special issue on Congenital malformations of the brain, the authors have therefore based their work on embryology and pathology. To bring some order and conceptual organization to these otherwise difficult lesions, they have tried to elucidate the significant features of the malformations in terms of the stage(s) at which development departed from normal. In the main, the authors have followed Friede ~ and have grouped the lesions as: