Barnes-Davis Maria E, Williamson Brady J, Merhar Stephanie L, Nagaraj Usha D, Parikh Nehal A, Kadis Darren S
Perinatal Institute, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati, OH, United States.
Department of Pediatrics, University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, United States.
Front Pediatr. 2022 Mar 18;10:821121. doi: 10.3389/fped.2022.821121. eCollection 2022.
Children born extremely preterm (<28 weeks gestation) are at risk for language delay or disorders. Decreased structural connectivity in preterm children has been associated with poor language outcome. Previously, we used multimodal imaging techniques to demonstrate that increased functional connectivity during a stories listening task was positively associated with language scores for preterm children. This functional connectivity was supported by extracallosal structural hyperconnectivity when compared to term-born children. Here, we attempt to validate this finding in a distinct cohort of well-performing extremely preterm children (EPT, = 16) vs. term comparisons (TC, = 28) and also compare this to structural connectivity in a group of extremely preterm children with a history of language delay or disorder (EPT-HLD, = 8). All participants are 4-6 years of age. We perform q-space diffeomorphic reconstruction and functionally-constrained structural connectometry (based on fMRI activation), including a novel extension enabling between-groups comparisons with non-parametric ANOVA. There were no significant differences between groups in age, sex, race, ethnicity, parental education, family income, or language scores. For EPT, tracks positively associated with language scores included the bilateral posterior inferior fronto-occipital fasciculi and bilateral cerebellar peduncles and additional cerebellar white matter. Quantitative anisotropy in these pathways accounted for 55% of the variance in standardized language scores for the EPT group specifically. Future work will expand this cohort and follow longitudinally to investigate the impact of environmental factors on developing language networks and resiliency in the preterm brain.
极早产儿（孕周<28周）出生后有语言发育迟缓或障碍的风险。早产儿大脑结构连接性降低与不良的语言发育结果相关。此前，我们使用多模态成像技术证明，在听故事任务期间功能连接性增强与早产儿的语言得分呈正相关。与足月儿相比，胼胝体外结构的高连接性支持了这种功能连接性。在此，我们试图在一组表现良好的极早产儿（EPT，n = 16）与足月儿对照组（TC，n = 28）中验证这一发现，并将其与一组有语言发育迟缓或障碍病史的极早产儿（EPT-HLD，n = 8）的结构连接性进行比较。所有参与者年龄在4至6岁之间。我们进行q空间微分同胚重建和功能受限的结构连接测量（基于功能磁共振成像激活），包括一种新的扩展方法，可通过非参数方差分析进行组间比较。在年龄、性别、种族、民族、父母教育程度、家庭收入或语言得分方面，各组之间没有显著差异。对于EPT组，与语言得分呈正相关的纤维束包括双侧后下额枕束、双侧小脑脚以及额外的小脑白质。这些通路中的定量各向异性专门解释了EPT组标准化语言得分中55%的方差。未来的工作将扩大这个队列并进行纵向跟踪，以研究环境因素对早产儿大脑中语言网络发育和恢复力的影响。
