Altered functional brain organisation in preterm Children: Motor task and resting-state fMRI findings at six years

Area of Science:

• Neuroscience
• Developmental Pediatrics
• Functional Neuroimaging

Background:

• Very preterm birth (<31 weeks gestation) disrupts early brain development, increasing risks for cognitive and motor deficits.
• Understanding the long-term functional brain organization in very preterm children is crucial for identifying neurodevelopmental trajectories.

Purpose of the Study:

• To characterize functional brain organization at six years of age in children born very preterm (VPT) compared to term-born controls (TC).
• To investigate differences in task-evoked motor activation and resting-state functional connectivity between VPT and TC children.

Main Methods:

• Functional MRI (fMRI) was used to assess brain activity during visually cued right- and left-hand tapping tasks.
• Resting-state fMRI data were analyzed for ROI-to-ROI connectivity within cortical, cerebellar, and subcortical networks.
• Analyses included general linear models, permutation testing, and ROI-to-ROI connectivity assessments.

Main Results:

• VPT children exhibited greater activation and stronger left-temporal lateralization during right-hand tapping compared to controls.
• Resting-state analyses showed weaker striatal circuit connectivity and altered network interactions (salience, dorsal-attention, visual, default-mode, frontoparietal) in VPT children.
• Reduced anticorrelation between default-mode and frontoparietal networks was observed in VPT children.

Conclusions:

• Children born very preterm display persistent reorganisation of functional brain networks at six years of age.
• These neurobiological differences in both task-based and resting-state activity provide insights into the long-lasting effects of very preterm birth on brain development.