Year: 2025
Type: article
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Iron plays a vital role in early brain development, supporting critical processes such as myelination, dendritogenesis, and neurotransmitter synthesis. The perinatal period marks a crucial transition from the intrauterine to the extrauterine environment, requiring significant brain adaptation to new stimuli and metabolic demands. However, tight spatiotemporal resolution capturing the timing and sequence of brain iron changes surrounding this critical transition has yet to be achieved. Leveraging a longitudinal perinatal cohort with 147 multi-echo MRI scans spanning from 25 to 60 post-conceptual gestational weeks, we mapped brain iron growth trajectories with R2* estimation across fetal, newborn and neonatal periods. We also examined whether sex, gestational age at birth, and birth weight influence R2* developmental trajectories. We found that parietal and superior temporal regions predominately show linear growth trajectories throughout the perinatal period across birth, while the occipital cortex, the temporal pole, inferior temporal regions and a subset of frontal regions exhibit non-linear trends. For most of the non-linear trajectories, growth rates peak around 40 weeks, highlighting the critical window of birth transition for brain R2* change. These results provide the first longitudinal insights into R2* development across birth, uncovering distinct regional growth patterns that may align with different phases of neurodevelopment.
Source: Communications Biology
Language: English
Subfield: Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $4,190
Funders: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, National Institutes of Health, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research
Awards: In Utero Assessment of the Human Neural Connectome and Later Child Behavior, G194412977, Longitudinal assessment of human brain connectome changes across the birth transition in both term and preterm pregnancies, G2499925985, From the womb to the classroom: Linking perinatal micronutrients and toxicants to neural and behavioral development in utero and in childhood, G3312042162, G3502056662, G3724532786, G4261012016, “Overlapping and Discrete Pathways Through Which Prenatal Isolation and Uncertainty Stress Impact Maternal Mental Health and Child Neurodevelopment, G4517019494, G5283329169, G5334517732, G5553246589, G6045499715, G6527602664, G6808849804, Examining Prenatal Inflammation and Neurodevelopment in a Longitudinal Fetal-to-Age 9 Imaging Study - Administrative Supplement, G7734355591, 8/24 The Healthy Brain and Child Development National Consortium, G7756580404, G7839243903, G966162126
OpenAlex ID: W4416225893