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Gestational Age is Dimensionally Associated with Structural Brain Network Abnormalities Across Development

Rula Nassar1, Antonia N Kaczkurkin2, Cedric Huchuan Xia2

  • 1Department of Pediatrics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA.

Cerebral Cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
|April 25, 2018
PubMed

Insights

Prematurity impacts cognitive function and brain structure, with lower gestational age linked to executive deficits and reduced brain volumes. These neurostructural changes partially explain the observed executive dysfunction in preterm individuals.

Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Developmental Psychology
  • Cognitive Science

Background:

  • Prematurity is linked to developmental issues, but its dimensional impact on cognition and neurostructure is understudied.
  • Few studies correlate gestational age with long-term cognitive and brain development outcomes.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the relationship between gestational age and cognitive/neurostructural development in youth.
  • To determine if neurostructural deficits mediate the association between prematurity and cognitive function.

Main Methods:

  • Utilized data from the Philadelphia Neurodevelopmental Cohort (ages 8-22 years).
  • Assessed cognition across executive function, social cognition, and episodic memory using factor analysis.
  • Measured brain volume and delineated structural covariance networks via T1-weighted neuroimaging and non-negative matrix factorization.

Main Results:

  • Lower gestational age correlated with deficits in executive function and reduced brain volumes in 11 of 26 structural networks.
  • Affected brain regions included orbitofrontal, temporal, parietal cortices, and the hippocampus.
  • Neurostructural deficits partially mediated the link between lower gestational age and executive dysfunction.

Conclusions:

  • Prematurity has lasting effects on cognitive abilities and brain structure persisting into young adulthood.
  • Neurostructural alterations are a key factor contributing to executive dysfunction in individuals born preterm.
  • Gestational age is a critical dimensional factor influencing long-term neurodevelopment.

Keywords:
anatomicaldevelopmentexecutive functioningprematurity

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