Structural-functional coupling at birth predicts cognitive and language function at 2 years of age
Poster No:
1033
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Yuehua Xu1, Xuhong Liao2, Tengda Zhao1, Minhui Ouyang3, Hao Huang4, Yong He1
Institutions:
1Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China, 2School of Systems Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, China, 3Department of Radiology, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, 4Department of Radiology, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Recent studies suggest that the functional interactions among regions are largely shaped by the underlying structural networks in the human brain[1]. The coupling between structural and functional networks increased with development, which was associated with executive performance in youth [2]. Of note, the human brain undergoes explosive growth in both structure and function during infancy period, laying the critical foundations for cognitive and behavior development in later life[3]. However, it remains unclear how structural networks develop during the prenatal period to support functional activity and cognitive development in later life. Here, we employed multi-modal MRI data in 40 neonates aged around 32 to 41 postmenstrual weeks, to characterize the development of structural connectivity-functional connectivity (SC-FC) coupling during the third trimester, and whether the coupling is predictive for future cognition, language, and motor development.
Methods:
Forty neonates (age at scan: 31.9-41.7wk; 29 males) were recruited and scanned with natural sleep using a Philips 3T MR Achieva scanner at Children's Medical Center at Dallas. In a follow-up, 26 infants underwent the Bayley-Ⅲ test to evaluate the cognitive, language and motor development at age 2[4]. The MRI protocol contains anatomical T2 weighted, diffusion MRI (dMRI) and resting-state functional MRI (R-fMRI) [5, 6]. The dMRI data were preprocessed with DTIStudio and Diffusion Toolkit and the deterministic fiber tractography was used for fiber tracking [6]. The R-fMRI data were preprocessed with SPM 12 and GRETNA[5]. After data preprocessing, we built the structural and functional network for each infant (Fig.1). The nodes of each subject were obtained by JHU neonate atlas[7]. The strength of structural connectivity was defined as the number of fibers connected two regions multiplied by the mean fractional anisotropy (FN*FA) across fibers. The strength of functional connectivity was estimated as the Pearson's correlation between two regions. Notably, we used the absolute Pearson's correlation coefficients to measure the coupling strength between nodal SC and FC. To further detect the age effects on the nodal SC-FC coupling, we used a general linear model in which gender, mean frame-wise displacement, postnatal age at scan and duration time between birth and scan were included as covariates. Finally, we performed a support vector regression approach and leave-one-out cross-validation to assess whether the SC-FC coupling at birth could predict cognitive, language, and motor skills at 2 years of age. To assess the prediction accuracy, we calculated the Pearson's correlation between the real score and the predicted score. The statistical significance of this prediction was evaluated by the permutation test (10,000 times).
Results:
The fitted spatial patterns of SC-FC coupling from 32 to 41 weeks were displayed in Fig. 2A. We found that the SC-FC coupling exhibited heterogeneous spatial patterns across the entire brain, with higher strength in the association areas, whereas lower strength in the primary regions (Fig.2A). Brain regions with significant age-dependent increase were left angular gyrus and right middle fronto-orbital gyrus (Fig. 2B,C p<0.05, FDR correction). The support vector regression analysis revealed that the SC-FC coupling at birth could significantly predict the cognitive (Fig. 2D, r=0.32, p=0.025) and language (Fig. 2E, r=0.56, p<0.001) scores at 2 years of age. Notably, the contributing features were primarily distributed in the medial and lateral frontal regions, left precuneus, and right cingulate gyrus for cognitive prediction (Fig. 2D); and the left inferior frontal gyrus, insular, inferior occipital gyrus, and cingulate gyrus for language prediction (Fig. 2E).
Conclusions:
Our findings highlight the development of brain SC-FC coupling during the third trimester, and provide new insights into the understanding of the brain and behavior relationships in early life.
Lifespan Development:
Normal Brain Development: Fetus to Adolescence 1
Novel Imaging Acquisition Methods:
Multi-Modal Imaging 2
Keywords:
Development
FUNCTIONAL MRI
STRUCTURAL MRI
WHITE MATTER IMAGING - DTI, HARDI, DSI, ETC
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
Abstract Information
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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.
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2. Baum, G.L., et al., Development of structure-function coupling in human brain networks during youth. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2020. 117(1): p. 771-778.
3. Cao, M., H. Huang, and Y. He, Developmental Connectomics from Infancy through Early Childhood. Trends Neurosci, 2017. 40(8): p. 494-506.
4. Bayley, N., Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development– Third Edition. San Antonio, TX: Harcourt Assessment. 2006.
5. Xu, Y., et al., Development and Emergence of Individual Variability in the Functional Connectivity Architecture of the Preterm Human Brain. Cereb Cortex, 2019. 29(10): p. 4208-4222.
6. Zhao, T., et al., Structural network maturation of the preterm human brain. Neuroimage, 2019. 185: p. 699-710.
7. Oishi, K., et al., Multi-contrast human neonatal brain atlas: application to normal neonate development analysis. Neuroimage, 2011. 56(1): p. 8-20.