Sunita Gudwani^1,2, S. Senthil Senthil Kumaran³, Rajesh Sagar⁴, Madhuri Behari⁵, Manju Mehta⁶, Vaishna Narang⁷, SN Dwivedi⁸, and NR Jagannathan^3
1Department of ENT, Escorts Heart Institute and Research Center, New Delhi, India, ²Former Department of NMR and MRI Facility, Former ALL INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL SCIENCES, NEW DELHI, India, ³Department of NMR and MRI Facility, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India, ⁴Department of Psychiatry, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India, ⁵Department of Neurology, Fortis Hospital, New Delhi, India, ⁶Department of Psychiatry (Psychology Unit), All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India, ⁷Department of Linguistics, School of Language, Jawahar Lal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, ⁸Department of Biostatistics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India

Reading skill is window to the world that we acquire with development. Dual-route model predicts our proficiency of grapheme (text) to phoneme (sound) conversion and semantic decoding (understanding content) for visual words. Fast processing by frontoparietal pathway while meaningful word reading but lexical decision to pseudowords proceeds slowly and exhaustively. Pseudoword successful orthographic mapping recruits ventral and then dorsal areas. This phonological proficiency and exhaustive mental lexicon search during reading is automatized with skill development. Current study evidences recruitment of inferior frontal gyrus (BA44 and 45), insula, thalamus, caudate nucleus and cortical reorganizations of skill developmental with age

Minhui Ouyang¹, Qinlin Yu¹, Huiying Kang², Yun Peng², Bo Hong³, and Hao Huang^1,4
1Department of Radiology, The Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, Philadelphia, PA, United States, ²Department of Radiology, Beijing Children’s Hospital, Capital Medical University, Beijing, China, ³Department of Biomedical Engineering, School of Medicine, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, ⁴Department of Radiology, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, United States

Human language capabilities are acquired during infancy. We hypothesized that language brain circuit emergence is supported by rapidly increasing regional cerebral blood flow (rCBF) to meet the metabolic demands. However, the spatiotemporal distribution of rCBF in language network during infancy is unknown. In this study, we acquired resting-state fMRI and pCASL perfusion MRI from 48 infants aged 0-24months for identifying language network and quantifying rCBF, respectively. Heterogeneous and significant age-dependent rCBF increases were found at specific functional regions of language network during this critical period.

Denis Peruzzo¹, Sara Mascheretti², Chiara Andreola^2,3, Gabriele Amorosino^1,4, Stefania Tirelli¹, Daniela Redaelli¹, and Filippo Arrigoni^1
1Neuroimaging Unit, IRCCS Eugenio Medea, Bosisio Parini, Italy, ²Child Psychopathology Unit, IRCCS Eugenio Medea, Bosisio Parini, Italy, ³Laboratory for the Psychology of Child Development and Education (LaPsyDE), University Paris Descartes, Paris, France, ⁴NeuroInformatics Laboratory (NILab), Bruno Kessler Foundation, Trento, Italy

According to the magnocellular (M) deficit theory, deficits in the visual M functions predict reading skills and are associated with Developmental Dyslexia (DD). We acquired two well-established visual tasks (i.e. a sinusoidal grating and a coherent dots motion detection) in 22 Normal Readers (NR) and 22 children with DD. We applied a multi-variate pattern analysis approach to combine the two tasks. The combination of their activation patterns significantly discriminated between NR and children with DD, suggesting that differences in the M functions are present between the two populations and supporting the M deficit theory

Muriel Marisa Katharina Bruchhage^1,2, Giang-Chau Ngo^1,2, Madhuri Tiwari³, Aarti Kumar³, Vishwajeet Kumar³, Viren D'Sa^1,2, and Sean C. L. Deoni^1,2,4
1Warren Alpert Medical School, Brown University, Providence, RI, United States, ²Advanced Baby Imaging Lab, Hasbro Children's Hospital, Providence, RI, United States, ³Community Empowerment Lab, Lucknow, India, ⁴Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health Discovery & Tools, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA, United States

Growth stunting is an indicator of poor child development, negatively impacting cognitive performance and overall health until adulthood. While previous studies have investigated links between neurocognitive functioning and resting state network functional connectivity (fc), most have been conducted in developed countries. In our study, we investigate brain network fc at rest in young children (<2 years) living in an Indian region with one of the worst human development indicators. When currently stunted, fewer fc networks were present than in never stunted children, possibly indicating an effect of stunting on brain fc already at a very young age.

Muriel Marisa Katharina Bruchhage^1,2, Giang-Chau Ngo^1,2, Viren D'Sa^1,2, and Sean C. L. Deoni^1,2,3
1Warren Alpert Medical School, Brown University, Providence, RI, United States, ²Advanced Baby Imaging Lab, Hasbro Children's Hospital, Providence, RI, United States, ³Maternal, Newborn, and Child Health Discovery & Tools, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, WA, United States

Developmental milestones are essential for a child’s development, with early milestones building a stepping-stone for more complex skills later. In this study, we investigate resting state functional connectivity (fc) before and after major developmental milestones (walking, pincer grasp, first words) were reached in a large cohort of typically developing children (3 to 30 months). Reaching a milestone showed a different fc pattern across all skill domains. Opposite to more complex skills where fc strengthened with skill advancement, walking recruited fewer fc networks when the milestone was reached, possibly underlining the importance of automaticity and complexity demand for the milestone achieved.

Yannan Cheng¹, Chao Jin², Xianjun Li², Congcong Liu², Miaomiao Wang², Huifang Zhao², Xiaoyu Wang², Yuli Zhang², Fan Wu², Mengxuan Li², Cong Tian², Peiyao Chen², Xiaocheng Wei³, Jianxin Guo², and Jian Yang^2
1Department of Radiology, the First Affiliated Hospital, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China, Xi'an, China, ²the First Affiliated Hospital, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi'an, China, Xi'an, China, ³MR Research China, GE Healthcare, Bei Jing, People's Republic of China, Xi'an, China

Seizures are the most common disease in children and some types like epilepsy usually cause many serious co-morbidities such as cognitive dysfunction. We detailed the alterations of brain white matter network in children with seizure and cognitive dysfunction by comparing the difference of network properties and connectivity strength between the patient and control groups. Here, we found that children with seizure and cognitive dysfunction show a suboptimal brain organization with reduced information integration ability, and abnormalities in multiple intrinsic functional connectivity may be the structural basis for cognitive impairment in patients with seizures.

Xin Xu^1,2 and Qiyong Gong^1,2
1Huaxi MR Research Center (HMRRC), Department of Radiology, West China Hospital of Sichuan Uinversity, Chengdu, China, ²Psychoradiology Research Unit of the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences (2018RU011)), West China Hospital of Sichuan Uinversity, Chengdu, China

To explore the brain network characteristics in children with ASD, we calculated the whole-brain structural and functional connectivity and its network topological attributes between ASD children and typical development (TD) by using whole-brain multimodal connectivity network analysis based on the Brainnetome Atlas. This study found that the left dorsomedial parieto-occipital sulcus was the area of overlap within both structural and functional connectivity abnormalities in ASD children compared with TD, implicated that this subregion of the precuneus was a key node in ASD brain network during childhood.

Gian Franco Piredda^1,2,3, Baptiste Morel^4,5, Maximilien Perivier^4,5, Clovis Tauber⁴, Jean Philippe Cottier⁴, Jean-Philippe Thiran^2,3, Bénédicte Maréchal^1,2,3, Tom Hilbert^1,2,3, and Tobias Kober^1,2,3
1Advanced Clinical Imaging Technology, Siemens Healthcare AG, Lausanne, Switzerland, ²Department of Radiology, Lausanne University Hospital and University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland, ³LTS5, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland, ⁴UMR 1253, iBrain, Université de Tours, Inserm, Tours, France, ⁵Pediatric Radiology Department, Clocheville Hospital, CHRU of Tours, Tours, France

The right-left lateralization of cognitive abilities in the human brain is reflected in hemispheric asymmetries. Since abnormal deviations of these asymmetries were linked to neurological disorders, establishing reference norms of hemispheric lateralization has clinical relevance. To this end, the normal evolution of brain asymmetries during development was modelled in a cohort of healthy young subjects. Normative ranges for brain asymmetries in volumes and T₁ were established using a linear model while accounting for sex differences and age. Initial results in data of epileptic patients demonstrate the potential of the established norms for detecting abnormal brain lateralization on a single-subject basis.

Wilburn E Reddick¹, John O Glass¹, Ruitian O Song¹, Ching-Hon Pui², and Sima Jeha^2
1Diagnostic Imaging, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, United States, ²Oncology, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Memphis, TN, United States

This study assessed whole-brain structural connectomes in 252 children treated for ALL during early phase of treatment and at end of therapy relative to 89 normal healthy age-similar controls. Both small worldness index and clustering coefficient were significantly lower in patients early and late in therapy relative to the controls but did not change during therapy. However, both characteristic path length and local efficiency significantly decreased during therapy. Decreased network integration and less efficient information transfer in patients treated for ALL is likely to result in decreased performance on neurocognitive testing by end of therapy.

A Ankeeta¹, s Senthil Kumaran¹, and Rohit Saxena^2
1NMR and MRI facility, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India, ²RP centre, Opthalmology, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India

Anatomical and functional MRI data for Braille and phonological noun pair assessment test was acquired in 40 early blind (EB), forty late blind (LB) subjects and thirty sighted controls (SC) in two age groups 6-12 years and 13-19 years (all right-handed). Visual impairment induces structural and functional modification in the visual cortex. Late blind subjects exhibited differences in the V1 13-19 years age range, but not in the 6-12 years age group. Duration of blindness and education influence the extent of plasticity of the V1 and language network.

Tiffany Bell^1,2,3, Akashroop Khaira^1,2,3, Mahak Sandhu^1,2,3, Megan Webb^1,2,3, Melanie Noel^3,4, Farnaz Amoozegar^2,5, and Ashley D Harris^1,2,3
1Department of Radiology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, ²Hotchkiss Brain Institute, Calgary, AB, Canada, ³Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute, Calgary, AB, Canada, ⁴Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, ⁵Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

Though migraine is a common childhood disease, there has been relatively little investigation into migraine in children. Here we use resting-state functional connectivity analyses to investigate functional alterations in brain activity in children with migraine. In agreement with the adult literature, we show altered resting-state connectivity in children with migraine compared to healthy controls in areas related to sensory processing. 

Jess E Reynolds^1,2,3, Kathryn Y Manning^1,2,3, Dmitrii Paniukov^1,2,3,4, Deborah Dewey^2,3,4,5, and Catherine Lebel^1,2,3
1Radiology, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, ²Owerko Centre, Alberta Children Hospital Research Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, ³Hotchkiss Brain Institute, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, ⁴Pediatrics, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada, ⁵Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

We aimed to identify whether variations in grey and white matter brain structure during early childhood predict future pre-reading skills. We examined anatomical (T1-weighted) and diffusion tensor (DTI) images from 35 children at 3.5years(±3months). Children were assessed for their pre-reading abilities using NEPSY-II subtests one year later (4.5years±3months). A data-driven linked independent component analysis was used to identify components of DTI and morphometry measures with shared variability across subjects that related to pre-reading ability approximately a year later. Our results suggest the co-development of grey and white matter brain structures in early life predicts future pre-reading capabilities in preschool children.

Vincent Jerome Schmithorst¹, Cecilia Lo², Philip Adams², Jodie Votava-Smith³, and Ashok Panigrahy^1
1Radiology, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, Pittsburgh, PA, United States, ²University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, United States, ³Children's Hospital of Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States

Functional connectivity strength (FCS) differences are investigated in term neonates with congenital heart disease (CHD) as compared to normal controls.  In CHD neonates, FCS is reduced in default mode network (DMN), salience network (SN), and central executive network (CEN) regions.  However, widespread positive post-conceptional age (PCA) at birth – X – CHD interactions were found, indicating this effect is more pronounced for CHD neonates born earlier in gestation, and that prolonged in utero exposure may be beneficial for development of brain functional connectivity.  Negative correlations of nasal nitric oxide (nNO) and FCS were also found, suggesting a partly vascular etiology.

Mengxing Wang¹, Xiangyu Zheng², Yue Liu¹, Jun Ma*^2,3, and Xiaoxia Du*^4
1College of Medical Imaging, Shanghai University of Medicine&Health Science, Shanghai, China, ²Department of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics, Shanghai Institute of Pediatric Translational Medicine, Shanghai Children’s Medical Center, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China, ³MOE‑Shanghai Key Laboratory of Children’s Environmental Health, Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine, Shanghai, China, ⁴Shanghai Key Laboratory of Magnetic Resonance and Department of Physics, School of Physics and Materials Science, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

This study was to investigate the potential disturbance in cognitive control in enuretic children using functional MRI. Two groups including enuretic and healthy children were scanned during a color-word Stroop task to evaluate their task performance and neural response. Compared to the healthy subjects, the children with enuresis showed stronger Stroop effect and increased activation for the incongruent > congruent condition contrast in the anterior cingulate and the precentral/postcentral gyri. Our results suggested that the enuretic children showed altered neural responses to conflict events and tended to compensate by greater activation to sustain normal cognitive control.

Yanan Song^1,2, Sara V. Bates^3,4, Rebecca J. Weiss^3,4, Randy L. Gollub^4,5, Sheng He^1,4, Camilo Jaimes^4,6, Susan Sotardi^4,7, Yue Zhang^1,4, Tonghua Liu², P. Ellen Grant^1,4,6, and Yangming Ou^1,4,6
1Fetal-Neonatal Neuroimaging Data Science Center, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States, ²Beijing University of Chinese Medicine, Beijing, China, ³Department of Pediatrics, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States, ⁴Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States, ⁵Department of Psychiatry, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States, ⁶Department of Radiology, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States, ⁷Department of Radiology, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA, United States

Hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy affects ~5/1000 neonates and causes neonatal death and 2-year disability. Using neonatal MRI to predict neonatal and 2-year outcomes remains a key open question. However, expert scoring of neonatal MRI, the current norm, only focuses on a few key brain regions based on subjective clinical experience. We objectively and comprehensively examined the associations with neonatal and 2-year outcomes throughout the brain. Our new findings – many voxels, subregions and fibers that are not considered in expert scoring systems, with a left hemisphere dominance, were associated with outcomes – provide new knowledge for future individualized outcome prediction.

Jinhong Yu¹, Yanwei Miao¹, Lizhi Xie², Bingbing Gao¹, Yu Bing¹, Li Yang¹, and Ailian Liu^1
1The First Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, China, ²GE Healthcare, Beijing, China

Exposure to high levels of bilirubin can cause severe motor symptoms and cerebral palsy. The aim of this study was to analyze the diagnostic value for early brain damage caused by hyperbilirubinemia (HB) in neonates using T1-weighted imaging (T1WI) and T2-weighted imaging (T2WI).

Wang Xiaohu¹, Ren huipeng¹, Fan qing¹, Wei Xiaocheng², and Ren Zhuanqin^1
1Baoji Central Hospital, Baoji, China, ²MR Research China, GE Healthcare, Beijing, China

External hydrocephalus (EH) can cause poor prognosis, but there is no consensus exists on diagnostic criteria for pathological EH in infants and young children. In this study, we measured extracerebral space of 212 healthy subjects on different anatomical slices and their age correlation were analyzed. The results demonstrated that extra cerebral space measured at different position on axial plane features similar age-related changes. The results of this study may be a valuable reference in diagnosis of external hydrocephalus.

Daniel J. King¹, Stefano Seri^1,2, Cathy Catroppa^3,4, Vicki A. Anderson^3,4, and Amanda G. Wood^1,5
1School of Life and Health Sciences & Aston Neuroscience Institute, Aston University, Birmingham, United Kingdom, ²Department of Clinical Neurophysiology, Birmingham Women’s and Children’s Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, Birmingham, United Kingdom, ³Brain and Mind Research, Clinical Sciences, Murdoch Children’s Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia, ⁴Department of Psychology, Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, ⁵School of Psychology, Faculty of Health, Melbourne Burwood Campus, Deakin University, Geelong, Victoria, Australia

Neuroanatomical correlates of long-term cognitive impairment after a paediatric traumatic brain injury are not established. Acutely acquired T1w MPRAGE MRI scans were used to calculate morphometric similarity between cortical areas. A supervised learning approach showed that, after cross-validation, morphometric similarity explained 12% variance in cognitive functioning two-years post-injury, beyond that of individual structural features. Thus, morphometric similarity is a useful approach to understand the diffuse effects of neurological insult on the still-developing brain and how this may predict later neuropsychological functioning.

You Won Shin¹, Taehoon Shin¹, Yoon Ho Nam^2,3, and Hyun Gi Kim^2
1Division of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering, Ewha Womans University, Seoul, Korea, Republic of, ²Department of Radiology, Eunpyeong St. Mary’s Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea, Republic of, ³Department of Radiology, Seoul St. Mary's Hospital, College of Medicine, The Catholic University of Korea, Seoul, Korea, Republic of

To predict poor psychomotor development in preterm neonates who underwent MRI at term-equivalent age, we implemented radiomics feature analysis of white matter on T1-and T2-weighted images. A total 1920 features were derived, and optimal number of features were selected. The area under the ROC curve (AUC) for the diagnostic abilities of the radiomics analysis were 0.657, 0.814, and 0.690, using T1-weighted images, T2-weighted images, and both T1- and T2-weighted images, respectively. In conclusion, radiomics for term-equivalent age brain MRI can be useful for predicting poor psychomotor outcome in preterm neonates.

Zhifeng Zhou¹, Xia Liu², Long Qian³, Yang Fan⁴, Hai Li⁴, Gangqiang Hou², Wentao Jiang², and Hengguo Li^5
1Radiology, Shenzhen Mental Health Center/Shenzhen Kangning Hospital, Shenzhen, China, ²Shenzhen Mental Health Center/Shenzhen Kangning Hospital, Shenzhen, China, ³GE Healthcare, Beijing, China, ⁴Beijing Intelligent Brain Cloud, Inc, Beijing, China, ⁵The First Affiliated Hospital of Jinan University, Guangzhou, China

Numerous studies have explored brain structural abnormalities in blind people. However, most of them were based on volumetric measures, using voxel-based morphology, or in a specific region of interest, which may conceal fine anatomic details in other features. This study investigated alterations in cortical morphologies (thickness, volume and surface area) in early-blind adolescents (EBAs) using a surface-based morphometric method. Our results showed that there was disuse atrophy, compensatory and experience-related neural plasticity in the cerebral cortex of EBAs due to the visual deprivation.

HyukJin Yun¹, Lana Vasung¹, Tomo Tarui², Caitlin K. Rollins³, Cynthia M. Ortinau⁴, P. Ellen Grant¹, and Kiho Im^1
1Newborn Medicine, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States, ²Pediatric Neurology, Tufts Medical Center, Boston, MA, United States, ³Neurology, Boston Children's Hospital, Boston, MA, United States, ⁴Pediatrics, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, United States

Sulcal pits is known to represent the first cortical folds emerging in early fetal life. However, little is known about sulcal pits in the fetal brain. Since fetal brain showed dynamic changes of cortical folding during the second half of gestation, it is necessary to investigate spatial and temporal patterns of sulcal pits in the fetal brain. We analyzed spatial distribution and quantified emergence timing of pits using 48 typically developing fetuses. Sulcal pits were uniformly distributed in the fetal brain, and their timing of emergence are regionally different. It demonstrates sulcal pits are important landmarks of human brain development.

Christopher Leslie Adamson¹, Bonnie Alexander¹, Gareth Ball¹, Richard Beare^1,2, Jeanie Chong^3,4,5, Alicia Spittle^1,4,5, Lex Doyle^1,4,5, Peter Anderson^1,5,6, Marc Seal^1,5, and Deanne Thompson^1,5
1Developmental Imaging, Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Parkville, Australia, ²Department of Medicine, Monash Unviersity, Melbourne, Australia, ³Murdoch Childrens Research Institute, Parkville, Australia, ⁴Royal Womens Hospital, Parkville, Australia, ⁵University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia, ⁶Monash Unviersity, Clayton, Australia

Longitudinal studies measuring changes in cortical morphology over time are best facilitated by parcellation schemes compatible across all life stages. The Melbourne Children's Regional Infant Brain (M-CRIB) and M-CRIB 2.0 atlases provide voxel-based parcellations of the cerebral cortex compatible with the Desikan-Killiany (DK) and the Desikan-Killiany-Tourville (DKT) cortical labelling schemes.

The curvature template registration targets, average surfaces, labelling training data, and pipeline execution scripts are available at (https://www.github.com/DevelopmentalImagingMCRI/MCRIBS). 

Huangyuan Chen¹ and Qing Cai^1,2
1Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China, ²NYU-ECNU Institute of Brain and Cognitive Science, New York University Shanghai, Shanghai, China

Individual brain size can vary as much as 1.5-fold. Furthermore, brain regions might not expand linearly proportional relative to total brain size. Scaling is a measure of such expansion. However, only few studies have investigated the differences in scaling pattern between childhood and adulthood. Here we analyzed structural T1 weighted images from children and adults datasets. We found that nonlinear scaling regions are more widely distributed in adults than in children. Therefore, we propose that individual brain regional growth might be influenced by “initial” brain size. 

Xinyue Hu¹, Ruohan Feng², Lianqing Zhang¹, Yang Li³, Xinyu Hu¹, Shi Tang¹, Yingxue Gao¹, Lihua Zhuo², Guoping Huang³, and Xiaoqi Huang^1
1Huaxi MR Research Center (HMRRC), Functional and molecular imaging Key Laboratory of Sichuan Province, Department of Radiology, West China Hospital, Sichuan University, Chengdu 610041, China, Chengdu, China, ²Department of Radiology, the third hospital of Mianyang, Mianyang, China, Mianyang, China, ³Department of Psychiatry, the third hospital of Mianyang, Mianyang, China, Mianyang, China

The detailed information about neuroanatomical alterations in adolescents with first-episode drug-naïve major depressive disorder (MDD) is still unknown. We measured cortical thickness, surface area and volume in 35 MDD patients and 22 healthy controls (HC). The MDD group, compared to HCs, showed reduction in cortical volume of the right precentral gyrus. We also found that MDD severity significantly correlated with cortical abnormalities in a number of regions, primarily in frontal and parietal lobes. These regions are implicated in emotion processing whose abnormities will contribute to the affective and cognitive dysfunction in adolescents with MDD.

Jianliang Gao¹, Ahmed Fetit¹, John Cupitt¹, Jonathan Passerat-Palmbach¹, Amir M Y F M Alansary¹, Antonios Makropoulos¹, Emma Robinson², Sean Fitzgibbon³, Matteo Bastiani^3,4, Nickolas Harper², Lucilio Cordero Grande², Anthony N Price², Eugene Duff³, Steve Smith³, Joseph V Hajnal², David Edwards², and Daniel Rueckert^1
1BioMedIA, Department of Computing, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom, ²Centre for the Developing Brain, Division of Imaging Sciences and Biomedical Engineering, King's College London, London, United Kingdom, ³Wellcome Centre for Integrative Neuroimaging, FMRIB, Nuffield Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom, ⁴Sir Peter Mansfield Imaging Centre, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom

We present for the  first time a large cohort of neonatal brain MR images were acquired. Based on 505 subjects' MRI brain imaging data were acquired as part of the developing Human Connectome Project (dHCP) , we investigated the differences of 92 brain regions and brain volume without and with normalization of the volumes. Using multivariate analysis and adaptive step-down false discovery rate (FDR) control methods to examine term born neonates, we found 90 out of 92 regions and the brain volume statistically significant between sexes. But selected data normalization methods also suggested less statistical significance in neonatal brain regions.

Sayo Otani¹, Yasutaka Fushimi¹, Satoshi Nakajima¹, Yusuke Yokota¹, Sonoko Oshima¹, Azusa Sakurama¹, Krishna Pandu Wicaksono¹, Tomohisa Okada², and Kaori Togashi^1
1Department of Diagnostic Imaging and Nuclear Medicine, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan, ²Human Brain Research Center, Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, Kyoto, Japan

We have evaluated the signal and the volume of anterior pituitary, posterior pituitary and thyroid gland in preterm and term infants on MRI by using 3D T1-PETRA sequence. Our study showed that the intensity of anterior pituitary was positively correlated with gestational age (GA), negatively correlated with chronological age (CA). We showed the intensity of posterior pituitary was also positively correlated with GA, negatively correlated with CA. We also demonstrated that the intensity of thyroid was positively correlated with GA, negatively correlated with CA. Our results may have relation to the maturity of hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid (HPT) axis.

Ting Li^1,2, Thomas M Badger³, Betty Jayne Bellando³, Seth Sorensen³, and Xiawei Ou^1,3,4
1Arkansas Children's Research Institute, LITTLE ROCK, AR, United States, ²University of Arkansas at Little Rock, LITTLE ROCK, AR, United States, ³University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, LITTLE ROCK, AR, United States, ⁴Arkansas Children's Nutrition Center, LITTLE ROCK, AR, United States

While it is known that breastfeeding promotes healthy brain development in children, the comparative effects of formulas feeding substantially differing in composition (i.e., milk-based vs. soy-based) on brain development are unclear. In this study, we recruited healthy 8-year-old children who were predominately breastfed, cow’s milk formula fed, or soy-based formula fed during infancy, and evaluated their brain cortical development using MRI. We also assessed their executive functions using parental-reported Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function (BRIEF) assessment. Differences in cortical thickness in multiple brain regions and differences in BRIEF scores were both observed for children in different infant diet groups.

Fan Wu¹, Xianjun Li¹, Yuli Zhang¹, Miaomiao Wang¹, Congcong Liu¹, Xiaoyu Wang¹, Chao Jin¹, Mengxuan Li¹, Cong Tian¹, Peiyao Chen¹, Xiaocheng Wei², and Jian Yang^1
1Department of Diagnostic Radiology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, China, ²MR Research China, GE Healthcare, Xi'an, China

The cortical representation of hand motor function, hand knob region, is localized in the precentral gyrus. We found that the age-related rapid development of hand knob areas peaks at 4-5 years, and the left side increases faster than right. And the different increase rate between the left and right hand knob regions of normal children may be related to dominant hemisphere of handedness. This study will help to understand the process of hand function development in children and provide the research basis for the study of the upper limb pathway of the nerve center.

Sunita Gudwani^1,2, S.Senthil Kumaran³, Rajesh Sagar⁴, Madhuri Behari⁵, Manju Mehta⁶, Vaishna Narang⁷, SN Dwivedi⁸, and NR Jagannathan^3
1Department of ENT, Escorts Heart Institute and Research Center, New Delhi, India, ²Former Department of NMR and MRI Facility, Former ALL INSTITUTE OF MEDICAL SCIENCES, NEW DELHI, India, ³Department of NMR and MRI Facility, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India, ⁴Department of Psychiatry, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India, ⁵Department of Neurology, Fortis Hospital, New Delhi, India, ⁶Department of Psychiatry (Psychology Unit), All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India, ⁷Department of Linguistics, School of Language, Jawahar Lal Nehru University, New Delhi, India, ⁸Department of Biostatistics, All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India

Reading a cultural invention by human species is complex cognitive skill. The ventral regions contribute as integrating bottom-up (feed-forward) generic visual processing with top-down influences from phonological and semantic areas. Developmental dyslexia a neurodevelopmental disorder, despite its description since century ago is yet unclear. The heterogeneous deficits, persists and may have emotional-socio-economic consequences. The study shows that if domain specific remediation, tailored according to subject’s neurobiological positive and negative signs along with behavioral measures, it benefits the individuals. Post-training improvement in behavioral performance and reorganizations in neural processing towards normalization, rather than compensatory regions attributed to optimal outcome