White matter alterations at pubertal onset.

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Biology
• Radiology

Background:

• Pubertal stage influences brain grey and white matter remodeling.
• White matter microstructural changes at pubertal onset are not well understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• Investigate white matter property differences between pre-pubertal and pubertal children.
• Examine alterations in fibre density and cross-section using fixel-based analysis.

Main Methods:

• Acquired diffusion-weighted imaging data from 74 typically developing children (age-matched pre-pubertal and pubertal groups).
• Utilized whole-brain fixel-based analysis (FBA) to assess fibre density (FD) and fibre cross-section (FC).
• Conducted post-hoc analyses on corpus callosum regions of interest (splenium, body, genu).

Main Results:

• Significant fixel-wise differences in fibre density (FD) were found between pubertal groups.
• Pubertal children exhibited higher FD in the posterior corpus callosum compared to pre-pubertal children.
• Post-hoc analysis revealed significant FD differences in the splenium of the corpus callosum.

Conclusions:

• Pubertal onset is associated with increased apparent fibre density in the splenium, likely due to increasing axon diameter.
• These white matter changes during puberty are crucial to consider in neurodevelopmental research, especially in group comparisons.
• Accounting for pubertal stage is important for studies involving age-matched clinical and typical populations.