Michael Dayan1, Monica Munoz2,3,
Sebastian Jentschke2,4, Martin J. Chadwick2,5, Janine
Cooper2, Kate Riney6, Faraneh Vargha-Khadem2,
Chris Alan Clark1
1Imaging & Biophysics,
UCL Institute of Child Health, London, United Kingdom; 2Developmental
Cognitive Neuroscience Unit, UCL Institute of Child Health, London, United
Kingdom; 3School of Medicine, University of CastillaLa Mancha, Albacete,
Spain; 4Free University, Cluster of Excellence "Languages of
Emotion", Berlin, Germany; 5Wellcome Trust Centre for
Neuroimaging, UCL Institute of Neurology, London, United Kingdom; 6Neurosciences
Unit, UCL Institute of Child Health, London, United Kingdom
The optic radiation is a white matter structure part of the visual pathway known to be myelin mature by the age of 3 years old. This study based on a cohort of 70 children assessed if any age related change and any effect of gender and hemisphere could be found through multiple regression analysis applied to the diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) parameters (FA, λ||, λ) computed within tracts reconstructed from probabilistic tractography. For λ|| and λ a significant dependence on hemisphere was demonstrated. An age effect was shown for λ|| in males left hemisphere (p < 0.008) and for λ for both hemisphere in males (p<0.01) but only in the right hemisphere for females (p < 0.01). Strong evidence for an age effect was also found for FA (p=0.00001). This work suggests that changes in the optic radiation are occurring up to adulthood and are varying according to hemisphere and gender.