Abstract #1751
A 3D surface based correlation analysis of the putamen and thalamus in premature neonates
Yi Lao 1 , Yalin Wang 2 , Jie Shi 2 , Rafael Ceschin 3 , Marvin D. Nelson 1 , Ashok Panigrahy 3 , and Natasha Lepore 1
1
Department of Radiology, University of
Southern California and Children's Hospital, Los
Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States,
2
School
of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems
Engineering, Arizona State University, Temp, Arizona,
United States,
3
Department
of Radiology, Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh UPMC,
Pittsburgh, pennsylvania, United States
Finding the neuroanatomical correlates of prematurity is
vital to understanding which structures are affected,
and in designing treatments. Studies revealed that deep
gray matter alterations, notably on the thalamus, are
important indicators of prematurity. However, little is
known about the association of altered thalamic
development with other deep gray matter disturbances,
and no study was able to localize the association within
the sub-nuclei of the gray matter. Here, using brain
structural MRI, we tested the hypothesis that thalamic
alterations due to prematurity is associated with that
of the ventral striatum. We performed a novel 3D
correlation of the thalamus and its allied ventral
striatum structures using 17 preterm and 19 term-born
neonates, in terms of the surface determinant and radial
distance. The results are then compared with previously
found group differences in the same dataset, to obtain a
more comprehensive assessment of the deep gray matter
involvement in premature injuries. Our results showed
that some of the regional abnormalities on the thalamus
are associated with the alterations in ventral striatum,
possibly due to the disturbance on the development of
the shared cortical-striatum-thalamus pathway. These
findings extend knowledge gained from traditional volume
based analyses of neonates in the literature, and
provide anatomical evidence to the concept of
'encephalopathy of prematurity'.
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