Preterm birth alters the development of cortical microstructure and morphology at term-equivalent age

作者：R. Dimitrova, Maximilian Pietsch, Judit Ciarrusta, S. Fitzgibbon, L. Williams, D. Christiaens, L. Cordero-Grande, D. Batalle, A. Makropoulos, A. Schuh, A. Price, J. Hutter, R. P. Teixeira, E. Hughes, A. Chew, S. Falconer, O. Carney, Alexia Egloff, Jacques-Donald Tournier, G. McAlonan, M. Rutherford, S. Counsell, E. Robinson, J. Hajnal, D. Rueckert, A. Edwards, J. O’Muircheartaigh · 发表于：bioRxiv · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1101/2021.06.03.446550 · 被引用次数：82 · 研究领域：Computer Science、Biology、Medicine

Introduction The dynamic nature and complexity of the cellular events that take place during the last trimester of pregnancy make the developing cortex particularly vulnerable to perturbations. Abrupt interruption to normal gestation can lead to significant deviations to many of these processes, resulting in atypical trajectory of cortical maturation in preterm birth survivors. Methods We sought to first map typical cortical micro and macrostructure development using invivo MRI in a large sample of healthy term-born infants scanned after birth (n=270). Then we offer a comprehensive characterisation of the cortical consequences of preterm birth in 78 preterm infants scanned at term-equivalent age (37-44 weeks postmenstrual age). We describe the group-average atypicality, the heterogeneity across individual preterm infants, and relate individual deviations from normative development to age at birth and neurodevelopment at 18 months. Results In the term-born neonatal brain, we observed regionally specific age-associated changes in cortical morphology and microstructure, including rapid surface expansion, cortical thickness increase, reduction in cortical anisotropy and increase in neurite orientation dispersion. By term-equivalent age, preterm infants had on average increased cortical tissue water content and reduced neurite density index in the posterior parts of the cortex, and greater cortical thickness anteriorly compared to term-born infants. While individual preterm infant...