Shiyu Yuan1, Jingda Yang1, Mengting Liu1, Duan Xu2, James Barkovich2, and Hosung Kim1
1USC Stevens Neuroimaging and Informatics Institute, Keck School of Medicine of USC, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, United States, 2Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, United States
The brain development of cyto- and myeloarchitecture undergoes rapid and intensive changes during the third trimester. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) probes the microstructural organization of brain tissue by measuring the three-dimensional spatial diffusion of water molecules1. Using mean diffusivity (MD) and fractional anisotropy (FA), we show the spatiotemporal pattern of cortical and superficial white matter maturation in preterm neonates. This result might be useful in the prediction of neurodevelopmental outcome and functional impairments in preterm survivors.
