High Resolution Postmortem MRI Discovers Developing Structural Connectivity in the Human Ascending Arousal Network.

ABSTRACT: Human arousal is essential to survival and mediated by the ascending arousal network (AAN) and its connections. It spans from the brainstem to the diencephalon, basal forebrain, and cerebral cortex. Despite advances in mapping the AAN in adults, it is unexplored in fetal and early infant life, especially with high-resolution magnetic resonance imaging techniques. In this study, we conducted-for the first time-high-resolution ex vivo diffusion MRI-based analysis of the AAN in seven fetal, infant, and adult brains, incorporating probabilistic tractography and quantifying connectivity using graph theory. We observed that AAN structural connectivity becomes increasingly integrated during development, progressively reaching rostrally during the first postconceptional year. We quantitatively ide

SUBMITTER: Licandro R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12665045 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature