Diffuse white matter abnormality in very preterm infants at term reflects reduced brain network efficiency.

ABSTRACT: Between 50 and 80% of very preterm infants (<32 weeks gestational age) exhibit increased white matter signal intensity on T2-weighted MRI at term-equivalent age, known as diffuse white matter abnormality (DWMA). A few studies have linked DWMA with microstructural abnormalities, but the exact relationship remains poorly understood. We related DWMA extent to graph theory measures of network efficiency at term in a representative cohort of 343 very preterm infants. We performed anatomic and diffusion MRI at term and quantified DWMA volume with our novel, semi-automated algorithm. From diffusion-weighted structural connectomes, we calculated the graph theory metrics local efficiency and clustering coefficient, which measure the ability of groups of nodes to perform specialized processing, and

SUBMITTER: Kline JE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8378797 | biostudies-literature | 2021

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature