Brain disorder associated with high levels of bilrubin; clinical features include athetosis, muscle spasticity or hypotonia, impaired vertical gaze, and deafness; nonconjugated bilirubin enters the brain and acts as a neurotoxin, often in association with conditions that impair the blood-brain barrier; this condition occurs primarily in neonates with perinatal blood incompatibilities, but may rarely occur in adults.

Kernicterus is a bilirubin-induced brain dysfunction. The term was coined in 1904 by Christian Georg Schmorl...