Translational Imaging Group Centre for Medical Image Computing (CMIC) University College London London UK.
INRIA - Microsoft Research Joint Centre Palaiseau France.
Brain Behav. 2016 May 17;6(8):e00488. doi: 10.1002/brb3.488. eCollection 2016 Aug.
Infants born extremely preterm (<28 weeks of gestation) are at risk of significant neurodevelopmental sequelae. In these infants birth coincides with a period of rapid brain growth and development, when the brain is also vulnerable to a range of insults. Mapping these changes is crucial for identifying potential biomarkers to predict early impairment.
In this study we use surface-based spectral matching techniques to find an intrasubject longitudinal surface correspondence between the white-grey matter boundary at 30 and 40 weeks equivalent gestational age in nine extremely preterm born infants.
Using the resulting surface correspondence, we identified regions that undergo more cortical folding of the white-grey matter boundary during the preterm period by looking at changes in well-known curvature measures. We performed Hotelling T(2) statistics to evaluate the significance of our findings.
The prefrontal and temporal lobes exhibit most development during the preterm period, especially in the left hemisphere. Such correspondences are a promising result as longitudinal measurements of change in cortical folding could provide insightful information about the mechanical properties of the underlying tissue and may be useful in inferring changes during growth and development in this vulnerable period.
极早产儿（<28 周妊娠）存在发生重大神经发育后遗症的风险。在这些婴儿中，出生恰逢大脑快速生长和发育的时期，此时大脑也容易受到一系列损伤。绘制这些变化图对于确定潜在的生物标志物以预测早期损伤至关重要。
在这项研究中，我们使用基于表面的光谱匹配技术，在 9 名极早产儿出生时的 30 周和 40 周等效胎龄之间找到白质-灰质边界的个体内纵向表面对应关系。
使用所得的表面对应关系，我们通过观察已知曲率测量值的变化，确定了在早产儿期间白质-灰质边界经历更多皮质折叠的区域。我们进行了 Hotelling T(2)统计以评估我们发现的显著性。
额叶和颞叶在早产儿期间表现出最多的发育，尤其是在左半球。这种对应关系是一个有希望的结果，因为皮质折叠变化的纵向测量可能提供有关基础组织机械性能的有价值信息，并可能有助于推断在此脆弱时期的生长和发育过程中的变化。
