Department of Pediatric Neurology and Developmental Medicine, Children's Hospital, Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Germany; Experimental Pediatric Neuroimaging, Children's Hospital and Department of Neuroradiology, Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Germany.
Hum Brain Mapp. 2014 Jul;35(7):3372-84. doi: 10.1002/hbm.22408. Epub 2013 Nov 15.
Very preterm (PT) birth (≤32 weeks of gestation) carries a high risk for an adverse neurodevelopmental outcome. In recent years, the importance of neurocognitive deficits in the language domain has been increasingly recognized, which can be well-characterized using neuropsychological testing and noninvasive imaging approaches. We compared former early PT born children and adolescents (PT, n = 29, 20M) and typically developing children (TD, n = 19, 7M), using conventional fMRI group analyses as well as functional connectivity analyses. We found only small regions with significantly different group activation (PT > TD) but significantly stronger connectivity between superior temporal lobe (STL) language regions in TD participants. There were also significant differences in local and global network efficiency (TD > PT). Surprisingly, there was a stronger connectivity of STL regions with non-STL regions both intrahemispherically and interhemispherically in PT participants, suggesting the coexistence of reduced and increased connectivity in the language network of former PTs. Very similar results were obtained when using task-based versus resting state functional connectivity approaches. Finally, lateralization of functional connectivity correlated with verbal comprehension abilities, suggesting that a more bilateral language comprehension representation is associated with better performance. Our results underline the importance of interhemispheric crosstalk for language comprehension.
极早产（PT）出生（≤32 孕周）存在不良神经发育结局的高风险。近年来，语言领域的神经认知缺陷的重要性越来越受到重视，神经心理学测试和非侵入性成像方法可以很好地描述这种缺陷。我们使用常规 fMRI 组分析和功能连接分析比较了以前的早期 PT 出生的儿童和青少年（PT，n = 29，20M）和典型发育的儿童（TD，n = 19，7M）。我们发现只有小区域的组激活有显著差异（PT > TD），但 TD 参与者的颞上回（STL）语言区域之间的连接明显更强。局部和全局网络效率也存在显著差异（TD > PT）。令人惊讶的是，PT 参与者的 STL 区域与同侧和对侧的非 STL 区域之间的连接也更强，这表明在以前的 PT 中，语言网络中存在减少和增加的连接共存。当使用任务态与静息态功能连接方法时，得到了非常相似的结果。最后，功能连接的偏侧化与言语理解能力相关，这表明更双侧的语言理解表示与更好的表现相关。我们的结果强调了语言理解中大脑半球间串扰的重要性。
