Poster No:
336
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Patric Kienast1, Marlene Stuempflen1, Daniela Prayer1, Gregor Kasprian2
Institutions:
1Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Vienna, 2Medical University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
In the populations of North America and Europe, approximately 10% of women engage in alcohol consumption during pregnancy. The adverse neurodevelopmental consequences of prenatal alcohol exposure can manifest postnatally with a broad spectrum of phenotypic variations, ranging from subtle learning difficulties to severe neurological disorders. These manifestations are collectively referred to as fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) and exhibit a prevalence rate of 8 per 1,000 live births.
While it is widely acknowledged that alcohol consumption during pregnancy can detrimentally impact neuronal development, there is a scarcity of studies directly elucidating this effect during the prenatal phase of brain development. A recent study by Stuempflen et al. has demonstrated prenatal volumetric alterations in the corpus callosum after alcohol exposure, suggesting that structural alterations are detectable during the prenatal period.
In this study, we quantified prenatal alterations in fetal gyrification following maternal alcohol consumption during pregnancy. This analysis is based on automated surface assessment utilizing fetal MRI data.
Methods:
For this study, 500 fetal MRI examinations were included in which mothers were queried about their alcohol consumption habits using two standardized assessment tools: the Pregnancy Risk Assessment Monitoring System (PRAMS) and the Tolerance, Annoyance, Cutting-down, Eye-opener (TACE) questionnaire.
T2-weighted sequences of fetal brains in all three orthogonal planes were denoised, slice-wise motion-corrected, and interpolated onto a 3D-High resolution grid and segmented to obtain 3D super-resolution reconstructed images. Gyrification indices (GI), as described by Lyu et al. 2018 in detail, were calculated as a measure of local surface folding for ten different anatomical areas per hemisphere.
Asymmetry of the cerebral cortex was quantified by computing a lateralization index of the GI of the left and right hemispheres.
Neurotypical alcohol-affected cases were matched 1:1 with nonalcohol-exposed healthy control cases with respect to gestational week and sex of the fetus.
The gyrification indices of these two distinct groups were subjected to a statistical analysis using a paired t-test for comparative assessment.
Results:
22 Alcohol-exposed fetuses (mean gestational week [GW] 27.61 ± 3.94 weeks of Standard deviation) and 22 (mean GW 27.57 ± 3.94 weeks) 1:1 matched non-alcohol-exposed control fetuses were included in the study. Seventeen mothers drank only a small amount of alcohol (<14 grams per week).
GI asymmetry indices were calculated for the medial wall, mesial and lateral occipital parietal and frontal lobes, the temporal lobes, the insular, and the limbic region. The neurotypical fetal brain asymmetry of the temporal lobes was significantly reduced (p=0.48, 95% CI -2.24 - -0.01) in alcohol-exposed fetuses.
Conclusions:
Alcohol consumption during pregnancy alters prenatal brain development and can be detected by fetal MRI in temporal brain asymmetry. This is consistent with the correlation of prenatal brain asymmetry and language development in childhood described in the literature, which is often negatively influenced in children with FASD. The structural effects could already be demonstrated in mothers who drank a small amount of alcohol during pregnancy.
Disorders of the Nervous System:
Neurodevelopmental/ Early Life (eg. ADHD, autism) 1
Modeling and Analysis Methods:
Segmentation and Parcellation 2
Novel Imaging Acquisition Methods:
Anatomical MRI
Keywords:
Cortex
Development
Machine Learning
Modeling
MRI
PEDIATRIC
Segmentation
Toxins
Other - alcohol
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
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Please indicate below if your study was a "resting state" or "task-activation” study.
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Healthy subjects only or patients (note that patient studies may also involve healthy subjects):
Patients
Was this research conducted in the United States?
No
Were any human subjects research approved by the relevant Institutional Review Board or ethics panel?
NOTE: Any human subjects studies without IRB approval will be automatically rejected.
Yes
Were any animal research approved by the relevant IACUC or other animal research panel?
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Not applicable
Please indicate which methods were used in your research:
Structural MRI
Computational modeling
For human MRI, what field strength scanner do you use?
1.5T
3.0T
Which processing packages did you use for your study?
FSL
Free Surfer
Provide references using APA citation style.
Banakar, M. K., Kudlur, N. S., & George, S. (2009). Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder(FASD). The Indian Journal of Pediatrics, 76(11), 1173-1175.
Passmore, H. M., Mutch, R., Burns, S., Watkins, R. E., Carapetis, J., Hall, G., & Bower, C. (2018). Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD): Knowledge, attitudes, experiences and practices of the Western Australian youth custodial workforce. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 59, 44-52.
Popova, S., Lange, S., Shield, K., Mihic, A., Chudley, A., Mukherjee, R., Bekmuradov, D., & Rehm, J. (2016). Comorbidity of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis. The Lancet, 387(10022), 978-987
Riley, E., Infante, M., & Warren, K. (2011). Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders: An overview. Neuropsychology Review, 21(2), 73-80.
No