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Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. Periventricular leukomalacia (PVL) is a form of white-matter brain injury, characterized by the necrosis (more often coagulation) of white matter near the lateral cerebral ventricles. It can affect newborns and (less commonly) fetuses; premature infants are at the greatest risk of the disorder. Affected individuals generally exhibit motor control problems or other developmental delays, and they often develop cerebral palsy or epilepsy later in life. This pathology of the brain was described under various names ("encephalodystrophy," "ischemic necrosis," "periventricular infarction," "coagulation necrosis," "leukomalacia," "softening of the brain," "infarct periventricular white matter," "necrosis of white matter," "diffuse symmetrical periventricular leukoencephalopathy"), and more often by German scientists, but the worldwide dissemination was the term periventricular leukomalacia, introduced in 1962 B.A.Banker and J.C.Larroche.