Identifying Growth Velocity Discontinuities in the First Postnatal Year Brain Development with Diffusion Tensor Imaging

Yasheng Chen¹, Hongtu Zhu², Jiaping Wang², Hongyu An¹, Dinggang Shen¹, Weili Lin¹

With 105 longitudinal DTI datasets acquired from 35 healthy full-term infants, we have demonstrated that almost all brain regions (excluding corpus callosum splenium) demonstrating a significant change in growth velocities after 100 days during the first postnatal year for DTI parameters including FA and MD. These results agree with previous postmortem histological findings that a more rapid myelination occurs within the 43~54 post conceptual weeks. Thus, it is very promising to correlate the growth trajectories of DTI parameters with the development of early postnatal white matter myelination.