Friday, 7 may 2010

L. Tugan Muftuler¹, Claudia Buss², Orhan Nalcioglu¹, Curt A. Sandman², Elysia Poggi Davis<sup>2

1</sup>Center for Functional Onco-Imaging, University of California, Irvine, CA, United States; ²Psychiatry & Human Behavior, University of California, Orange, CA, United States

In the fetal brain, there is minimal myelinated WM at 29 weeks and a dramatic increase is seen after the 36th week. Therefore, this is a period when the brain development is highly vulnerable to insults caused by premature birth. Prior studies have investigated the mean differences between preterm and term children. But the fetal brain development is a continuous process and gestational age at birth will disrupt the process in different phases. Therefore, we studied the persisting effects of GAB on the WM of children. The results show that major WM pathways are strongly influenced by the GAB.

12:06 742. Differences in Biochemical Maturation in Term and Preterm Newborns

Ashok Panigrahy^1,2, Marvin D. Nelson¹, Floyd H. Gilles³, Lisa Paquette⁴, Istvan Seri⁴, Stefan Bluml<sup>1,5

1</sup>Department of Radiology, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States; ²Department of Radiology, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC, Pittsburgh, PA, United States; ³Department of Neuropathology, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States; ⁴Division of Neonatology, Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, United States; ⁵Rudi Schulte Research Institute, Santa Barbara, CA, United States

In this study, we compare age-dependent changes of metabolites using quantitative MR spectroscopy in white and grey matter of premature neonates without brain injury with normal biochemical maturation in age-matched term neonates. There are subtle but significant differences in the biochemical maturation of white matter in premature infants with normal conventional MR imaging when compared to control term infants. The observations suggest accelerated white matter development in the premature brain possibly from increased sensory-motor stimulation in the extra-uterine environment or possibly a reparative response to subtle brain injury (i.e. possibly related to sepsis induced white matter injury).

12:18 743. The Functional-Structural Interplay During First Two Years' Brain Development

Wei Gao¹, Pew-Thian Yap², Hongtu Zhu³, Kelly Giovanello⁴, Keith Smith², John Gilmore⁵, Weili Lin<sup>6

1</sup>Biomedical Engineering, UNC-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States; ²Radiology, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States; ³Biostatistics and Biomedical Research Imaging Center, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States; ⁴Psychology and Biomedical Research Imaging Center, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States; ⁵Psychiatry, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States; ⁶Radiology and Biomedical Research Imaging Center, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, United States

In this study, normal and healthy pediatric subjects aged between 2wk to 2 yrs were studied so as to directly compare the temporal evolution of brain functional and structural connectivity. In so doing, we aim to determine the temporal correlation between functional and structural connectivity during the first two years of life and to reveal whether or not maturation of structural connectivity is needed for functional connectivity.