More than myelin: Probing white matter differences in prematurity with quantitative T1 and diffusion MRI

Katherine E. Travis, Maria R.H. Castro, Shai Berman, Cory K. Dodson, Aviv A. Mezer, Michal Ben-Shachar, Heidi M. Feldman

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

14 Scopus citations

Abstract

Objective: We combined diffusion MRI (dMRI) with quantitative T1 (qT1) relaxometry in a sample of school-aged children born preterm and full term to determine whether reduced fractional anisotropy (FA) within the corpus callosum of the preterm group could be explained by a reduction in myelin content, as indexed by R1 (1/T1) from qT1 scans. Methods: 8-year-old children born preterm (n = 29; GA 22–32 weeks) and full term (n = 24) underwent dMRI and qT1 scans. Four subdivisions of the corpus callosum were segmented in individual native space according to cortical projection zones (occipital, temporal, motor and anterior-frontal). Fractional anisotropy (FA) and R1 were quantified along the tract trajectory of each subdivision and compared across two birth groups. Results: Compared to controls, preterm children demonstrated significantly decreased FA in 3 of 4 analyzed corpus callosum subdivisions (temporal, motor, and anterior frontal segments) and decreased R1 in only 2 of 4 corpus callosum subdivisions (temporal and motor segments). FA and RD were significantly associated with R1 within temporal but not anterior frontal subdivisions of the corpus callosum in the term group; RD correlated with R1 in the anterior subdivision in the preterm group only. Conclusions: Myelin content, as indexed by R1, drives some but not all of the differences in white matter between preterm and term born children. Other factors, such as axonal diameter and directional coherence, likely contributed to FA differences in the anterior frontal segment of the corpus callosum that were not well explained by R1.

Original languageEnglish
Article number101756
JournalNeuroImage: Clinical
Volume22
DOIs
StatePublished - 2019

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2019

Funding

The authors received funding support from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (Grant # R01HD069162 [Feldman], 5K99HD084749 [Travis]) and a Young Investigator Award to Dr. Travis, from the Society of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics (2014). Funders were not involved in study design, data collection, data analysis, manuscript preparation or publication decisions. NIH (Grant # R01HD069162 [Feldman], 5K99HD084749 [Travis]) and Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics Young Investigator Award (2014 - Travis). Funding sources had no involvement in the study design, or the collection, analyses and interpretation of data presented in this manuscript.

FundersFunder number
National Institutes of Health
National Institute of Child Health and Human DevelopmentR01HD069162, 5K99HD084749
Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics

    Keywords

    • Corpus callosum
    • Development, myelin
    • Fractional anisotropy
    • Preterm

    Fingerprint

    Dive into the research topics of 'More than myelin: Probing white matter differences in prematurity with quantitative T1 and diffusion MRI'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

    Cite this