Topic: mean diffusivity

Emerging evidence suggests that intrauterine exposures to maternal factors such as to maternal pre-pregnancy body mass index (MBMI) impacts the neurodevelopment of the offspring in a region-specific way, possibly contributing to future obesity risk of the offspring. Our study investigates the associations between MBMI and neonatal global white matter integrity in 157 infant-mother dyads from FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study (www.finnbrain.fi). Following TBSS (Tract-based Spatial Statistics) skeletonization, associations between MBMI and mean diffusivity values were assessed using a voxel-wise non-

The brain parenchyma undergoes several structural changes throughout life that significantly impact on its physiology, and are reflected in changes in cognitive abilities. The aim of this healthy ageing study was to investigate how age-related microstructural alterations affect the degree of preserved cognition in the elderly. We sought to identify brain region- and age-specific patterns that contribute to the physiological decline in cognition. To this end, we compared behavioral and microstructural MRI biomarkers in adult (6 months) and old (1.5 years) Wistar rats. Additionally, we analyzed

Preterm (PT) birth is associated with impaired verbal fluency [1] and verbal processing speed [2]. Interestingly, white matter microstructural alterations in the arcuate fasciculus (AF), superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF), uncinate fasciculus (UF), and inferior frontooccipital fasciculus (IFOF) -tracts, which are suggested to subserve language ability [3] - have been found in PT-born children [4]. We hypothesized that microstructural alterations of these tracts link with verbal fluency and verbal processing speed impairments in PT-born adults.Sixty-three PT- and eighty-one term-born (FT) a

Background: Synaptic degeneration is one of the pathological events in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), for which growth-associated protein 43 (GAP-43) and diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) could be an indicator. In this study, the CSF GAP-43 clinical trajectories and their association with progression and AD hallmarks with WM micro-structural alterations were evaluated. Methods: A total number of 133 participants were enrolled. GAP-43 and DTI values were compared between groups, both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. Subsequently, the potential of GAP-43 levels in the CSF in predicting DTI values w

Maternal immune activation (MIA) has been implicated in offspring neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders, although it is unknown to what extent MIA affects neurodevelopment in the general population, and whether effects differ by sex. The current study was set within FinnBrain, a prospective birth cohort study based in Turku, Finland. We examined the association between maternal prenatal C-reactive protein (CRP), a commonly used systemic inflammatory marker, and white matter fractional anisotropy (FA) and mean diffusivity (MD) in infant and 5-year-old offspring, using voxel-wise statisti

The developmental origins of fear and its variations in individuals are poorly understood. Evidence suggests an attentional bias towards fearful faces emerges around 5-7 months of age. Our prior findings in 8-month-old infants indicate that neonatal left amygdala volumes were positively associated with attention disengagement probability from fearful faces. To our knowledge, this is the first study exploring the underlying white matter tracts. We used neonatal diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) data and eye tracking using an overlap paradigm with faces and non-faces as a behavioural measure collec

Attentional preference for social stimuli, such as different facial expressions, is an important part of the development of humans' behavioral and emotional health. Infants demonstrate a predilection for faces and tend to sustain visual attention over non-social stimuli immediately after birth and throughout infancy. Infants begin to identify facial expressions and emotions around the age of 6 to 8 months. Studies have shown that the amygdala plays an important role in infants' attentional bias towards faces and fear processing. The goal of this study was to examine how infants’ amygdala mean