There is no known cure for microcephaly. Treatment is symptomatic and supportive.

Treatment is symptomatic, and may include anti-seizure medication and special or supplemental education consisting of physical, occupational, and speech therapies.

Microlissencephaly is listed in Orphanet database as a rare disease. There is no much information available about the epidemiology of microlissencepahly in literature. A PhD thesis has estimated the prevalence of microlissencepahly in South–Eastern Hungary between July 1992 and June 2006 to be a case every 91,000 live births (0.11:10,000).

Microlissencephaly (MLIS) is a rare congenital brain disorder that combines severe microcephaly (small head) with lissencephaly (smooth brain surface due to absent sulci and gyri). Microlissencephaly is a heterogeneous disorder i.e. it has many different causes and a variable clinical course. Microlissencephaly is a malformation of cortical development (MCD) that occurs due to failure of neuronal migration between the third and fifth month of gestation as well as stem cell population abnormalities. Numerous genes have been found to be associated with microlissencephaly, however, the pathophysiology is still not completely understood.

The combination of lissencephaly with severe congenital microcephaly is designated as microlissencephaly only when the cortex is abnormally thick. If such combination exists with a normal cortical thickness (2.5 to 3 mm), it is known as "microcephaly with simplified gyral pattern" (MSGP). Both MLIS and MSGP have a much more severe clinical course than microcephaly alone. They are inherited in autosomal recessive manner. Prior to 2000, the term “microlissencephaly” was used to designate both MLIS and MSGP.

The prognosis for children with NMDs varies depending on the specific disorder and the degree of brain abnormality and subsequent neurological signs and symptoms.

Microcephaly generally is due to the diminished size of the largest part of the human brain, the cerebral cortex, and the condition can arise during embryonic and fetal development due to insufficient neural stem cell proliferation, impaired or premature neurogenesis, the death of neural stem cells or neurons, or a combination of these factors. Research in animal models such as rodents has found many genes that are required for normal brain growth. For example, the Notch pathway genes regulate the balance between stem cell proliferation and neurogenesis in the stem cell layer known as the ventricular zone, and experimental mutations of many genes can cause microcephaly in mice, similar to human microcephaly. In addition, viruses such as cytomegalovirus (CMV) or Zika have been shown to infect and kill the primary stem cell of the brain—the radial glial cell, resulting in the loss of future daughter neurons. The severity of the condition may depend on the timing of infection during pregnancy.

Lissencephaly 2, more commonly called Norman–Roberts syndrome, is a rare form of microlissencephaly caused by a mutation in the RELN gene.A small number of cases have been described. The syndrome was first reported by Margaret Grace Norman and M. Roberts et al. in 1976.

Lack of reelin prevents normal layering of the cerebral cortex and disrupts cognitive development. Patients have cerebellar hypoplasia and suffer from congenital lymphedema and hypotonia. The disorder is also associated with myopia, nystagmus and generalized seizures.

Norman–Roberts syndrome is one of two known disorders caused by a disruption of the reelin-signaling pathway. The other is VLDLR-associated cerebellar hypoplasia, which is caused by a mutation in the gene coding for one of the reelin receptors, VLDLR.

Disruption of the RELN gene in human patients is analogous to the malfunctioning RELN gene in the reeler mouse.