Modeling healthy male white matter and myelin development: 3 through 60months of age.

Publication/Presentation Date

1-1-2014

Abstract

An emerging hypothesis in developmental and behavioral disorders is that they arise from disorganized brain messaging or reduced connectivity. Given the importance of myelin to efficient brain communication, characterization of myelin development in infancy and childhood may provide salient information related to early connectivity deficits. In this work, we investigate regional and whole brain growth trajectories of the myelin water fraction, a quantitative magnetic resonance imaging measure sensitive and specific to myelin content, in data acquired from 122 healthy male children from 3 to 60months of age. We examine common growth functions to find the most representative model of myelin maturation and subsequently use the best of these models to develop a continuous population-averaged, four-dimensional model of normative myelination. Through comparisons with an independent sample of 63 male children across the same age span, we show that the developed model is representative of this population. This work contributes to understanding the trajectory of myelination in healthy infants and toddlers, furthering our knowledge of early brain development, and provides a model that may be useful for identifying developmental abnormalities.

Volume

84

First Page

742

Last Page

752

ISSN

1095-9572

Disciplines

Medicine and Health Sciences | Pediatrics

PubMedID

24095814

Department(s)

Department of Pediatrics

Document Type

Article

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