Genes may show which child heart patients need extra help

Half of children with severe heart defects also experience learning disabilities or other neurodevelopmental delays, which have been blamed partly on the stress of heart surgery they undergo early in life and on impaired blood flow during pregnancy. A new study finds evidence for an additional culprit, one that had long been suspected: genetics. The study, whose authors included researchers at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, identified a series of mutations that were significantly more prevalent in children with both heart and brain issues than in those with heart problems alone. The findings, to be published in Friday's...