Floris Groenendaal

Floris Groenendaal finished Medical School of the Erasmus University Rotterdam in 1984. From 1984 1986 he worked at the Institute of Physiology I (Neurophysiology) of the Erasmus University Rotterdam and defended his PhD thesis: "Perinatal hypoxia and visual functions in infants and children" in January 1988. From 1986 to 1991 he was trained in paediatrics in the Sophia Children’s Hospital in Rotterdam. His fellowship neonatology was spent at the Sophia Children’s Hospital, Rotterdam, and the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital, Utrecht.

Since April 1993 he is consultant neonatology at the Wilhelmina Children’s Hospital/University Medical Center, Utrecht, The Netherlands. At present he is associate professor of neonatology.

In 1994 he was funded by the Ter Meulen Fund to spend his post-doc period at the Department of Physiology of the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, USA. The main focus of his scientific research is: early detection of neonatal brain injury (including MR techniques) and neuroprotection. Under his guidance hypothermia was introduced as standard therapy for neonates with perinatal asphyxia in the Netherlands in 2008. Meanwhile, in collaboration with the NIDOD laboratory of the UMC Utrecht novel therapeutic  strategies have been developed and tested in animal models.

He has been involved in many PhD studies, and has obtained grants from different sources. Publications cited in PubMed include more than 250 papers.

He is member of many professional societies.

Research line

Neonatal neuroprotection

Most recent key publications

1: Harteman JC et al. Diffusion-weighted imaging changes in cerebral watershed distribution following neonatal encephalopathy are not invariably associated with an adverse outcome. Dev Med Child Neurol. 2013;55:642-53
2: Harteman JC et al. Placental pathology in full-term infants with hypoxic-ischemic neonatal encephalopathy and association with magnetic resonance imaging pattern of brain injury. J Pediatr. 2013;163:968-95
3: Van den Heuvel MP et al. The Neonatal Connectome During Preterm Brain Development. Cereb Cortex. 2015;25:3000-13
4: Kersbergen K et al. Microstructural brain development between 30 and 40 weeks corrected age in a longitudinal cohort of extremely preterm infants. Neuroimage. 2014;103:214-24
5: Alderliesten T et al. Neuroprotection by argon ventilation after perinatal asphyxia: a safety study in newborn piglets. PLoS One. 2014;9:e113575