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 language | English |
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Article number | 101756 |
Journal | NeuroImage: Clinical |
Volume | 22 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - 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.
Funders | Funder number |
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National Institutes of Health | |
National Institute of Child Health and Human Development | R01HD069162, 5K99HD084749 |
Society for Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics |
Keywords
- Corpus callosum
- Development, myelin
- Fractional anisotropy
- Preterm