Editor—Rutherford et al diagnosed type I hypoxic-ischaemic encephalopathy (HIE) from MRI scans showing high signal intensity in periventricular white matter.1 Figure 1 shows a T2 weighted spin-echo sequence with high signal in the posterior periventricular white matter in a 1 year old child.

We believe that these MRI findings occur in normal children and should not be interpreted as evidence of HIE.

Areas of high signal intensity in the white matter dorsal and superior to the ventricular trigones occur in many children on long TR/TE images. These have been attributed to the known physiological delay in myelination …