Université Paris-Saclay, CEA, CNRS, NeuroSpin, BAOBAB, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
Université Paris-Saclay, CEA, CNRS, NeuroSpin, BAOBAB, Gif-sur-Yvette, France.
Neuroimage. 2022 May 1;251:118837. doi: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118837. Epub 2021 Dec 26.
Despite growing evidence of links between sulcation and function in the adult brain, the folding dynamics, occurring mostly before normal-term-birth, is vastly unknown. Looking into the development of cortical sulci in infants can give us keys to address fundamental questions: what is the sulcal shape variability in the developing brain? When are the shape features encoded? How are these morphological parameters related to further functional development? In this study, we aimed to investigate the shape variability of the developing central sulcus, which is the frontier between the primary somatosensory and motor cortices. We studied a cohort of 71 extremely preterm infants scanned twice using MRI - once around 30 weeks post-menstrual age (w PMA) and once at term-equivalent age, around 40w PMA -, in order to quantify the sulcus's shape variability using manifold learning, regardless of age-group or hemisphere. We then used these shape descriptors to evaluate the sulcus's variability at both ages and to assess hemispheric and age-group specificities. This led us to propose a description of ten shape features capturing the variability in the central sulcus of preterm infants. Our results suggested that most of these features (8/10) are encoded as early as 30w PMA. We unprecedentedly observed hemispheric asymmetries at both ages, and the one captured at term-equivalent age seems to correspond with the asymmetry pattern previously reported in adults. We further trained classifiers in order to explore the predictive value of these shape features on manual performance at 5 years of age (handedness and fine motor outcome). The central sulcus's shape alone showed a limited but relevant predictive capacity in both cases. The study of sulcal shape features during early neurodevelopment may participate to a better comprehension of the complex links between morphological and functional organization of the developing brain.
尽管越来越多的证据表明脑沟回与成人脑功能之间存在联系，但主要发生在正常足月出生前的折叠动力学仍知之甚少。研究婴儿皮质脑沟回的发育可以为我们提供解决基本问题的线索：发育中大脑的脑沟回形状变化有哪些？形状特征何时编码？这些形态参数与进一步的功能发育有何关系？在这项研究中，我们旨在研究中央沟的形状变化，中央沟是初级体感和运动皮质之间的边界。我们对 71 名极早产儿进行了研究，这些婴儿在两次 MRI 扫描中使用了 MRI - 一次在大约 30 周胎龄后（w PMA），一次在接近 40w PMA 的足月龄时 - ，以便使用流形学习量化脑沟回的形状变化，而不考虑年龄组或半球。然后，我们使用这些形状描述符来评估两个年龄段的脑沟回的可变性，并评估半球和年龄组的特异性。这使我们提出了一个描述早产婴儿中央沟回形状变化的十个形状特征的描述。我们的结果表明，这些特征中的大多数（8/10）早在 30w PMA 时就被编码。我们首次在两个年龄段观察到半球不对称性，而在足月龄时观察到的不对称性似乎与之前在成年人中报道的不对称性模式相对应。我们进一步训练了分类器，以探索这些形状特征在手性和精细运动结果的 5 岁时的手动性能的预测价值。在这两种情况下，中央沟回的形状本身显示出有限但相关的预测能力。早期神经发育过程中脑沟回形状特征的研究可能有助于更好地理解发育中大脑形态和功能组织之间的复杂联系。
