Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, Canada; Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
Brain and Mind Institute, Western University, Canada.
Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2018 Oct;33:194-205. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2017.11.003. Epub 2017 Nov 11.
Functional MRI (fMRI) in infants is rapidly growing and providing fundamental insights into the origins of brain functions. Comparing brain development at different ages is particularly powerful, but there are a number of methodological challenges that must be addressed if confounds are to be avoided. With development, brains change in composition in a way that alters their tissue contrast, and in size, shape, and gyrification, requiring careful image processing strategies and age-specific standard templates. The hemodynamic response and other aspects of physiology change with age, requiring careful paradigm design and analysis methods. Infants move more, particularly around the second year of age, and move in a different way to adults. This movement can lead to distortion in fMRI images, and requires tailored techniques during acquisition and post-processing. Infants have different sleep patterns, and their sensory periphery is changing macroscopically and in its neural pathways. Finally, once data have been acquired and analyzed, there are important considerations during mapping of brain processes and cognitive functions across age groups. In summary, new methods are critical to the comparison across age groups, and key to maximizing the rate at which infant fMRI can provide insight into the fascinating questions about the origin of cognition.
功能磁共振成像（fMRI）在婴儿中的应用正在迅速发展，并为研究大脑功能的起源提供了重要的见解。比较不同年龄的大脑发育特别有意义，但如果要避免混杂因素，就必须解决许多方法学上的挑战。随着发育的进行，大脑在组成上发生变化，改变了组织对比度，并且在大小、形状和脑回形成方面也发生了变化，这需要仔细的图像处理策略和特定年龄的标准模板。随着年龄的增长，血液动力学响应和其他生理学方面也会发生变化，这需要仔细的范式设计和分析方法。婴儿的运动更多，尤其是在两岁左右，而且他们的运动方式与成年人不同。这种运动会导致 fMRI 图像的扭曲，因此在采集和后处理过程中需要定制技术。婴儿的睡眠模式也不同，他们的感觉外围在宏观和神经通路方面都在发生变化。最后，一旦获得和分析了数据，在跨年龄组映射大脑过程和认知功能时，就需要考虑一些重要的问题。总之，新的方法对于跨年龄组的比较至关重要，是最大限度地提高婴儿 fMRI 提供关于认知起源的迷人问题的洞察力的关键。
