Longitudinal analysis of brain network reorganization in preterm IUGR children at 1, 6 and 9 years-old

Intrauterine Growth Restriction (IUGR) due to placental insufficiency affects 5-10% of all pregnancies and it is associated with a wide range of short and long-term neurodevelopmental disorders. Different approaches have been considered to understand IUGR effects on brain development. Recently, connectomics has been used to analyze brain reorganization in IUGR children at one and six years of age. Connectomics estimates the brain network and describes it by different graph measures. Diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) can be used to infer the connectivity between regions, since it allows in-vivo estimation of fiber tracts inside the brain. In this study, DTI based connectomics was used to describe short- and long-term brain reorganization in IUGR. The connectome of a cohort of preterm IUGR and control children at 1, 6 and 9 years of age was estimated and analyzed to evaluate differences in the architecture of neural circuitry and its evolution during development