Cerebrovascular reactivity mapping using resting-state functional MRI in infants aged 0 to 6 months
Poster No:
2597
Submission Type:
Abstract Submission
Authors:
Baorong Gu1, Rui Qian1, Zilong Ye1, Bowen Qiu1, Zixuan Lin1, Dan Wu1
Institutions:
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China
First Author:
Co-Author(s):
Introduction:
Cerebrovascular reactivity (CVR), the ability of cerebral vessels to dilate or constrict, was proven to be altered in various cerebrovascular diseases such as arterial stenosis (Gupta et al., 2012), stroke (Geranmayeh et al., 2015), and small vessel disease. The common methods of measuring CVR require acetazolamide injection or hypercapnia challenge (Liu, De Vis and Lu, 2019), which is not suitable for infants. Therefore, we utilized a recently developed resting-state based method to map CVR in infants aged 0 to 6 months and explored the relationship between CVR and age, gender as well as cognition.
Methods:
Participants: Resting-state fMRI data of 67 subjects aged 0-6 months from the UNC/UMN Baby Connectome Project (BCP) (Howell et al., 2019) was included in this study. The information of the participants is elaborated in Figure 1A. All subjects were imaged without sedation and during natural sleep. Mullen Scales of Early Learning (MSEL) (Mullen, 1995) test results were available in a subset of 53 subjects.
Data processing: As shown in Figure 1B, BOLD images were first pre-processed and then temporally filtered using the optimal frequency range of 0 to 0.1164Hz (Liu et al., 2021). The resulted filtered signal time-courses were averaged across whole brain to obtain the reference time course. Then the relative CVR index was calculated by regressing the voxel-wise BOLD signal against the reference signal. CVR maps for all subjects were registered to their respective month templates (Figure 1C) (Chen et al., 2022) and then to the March template with the purpose of voxel-wise analyses.
Voxel-wise analyses: Multiple regression analysis was first used to examine the effect of age or gender on CVR. Then, age-standardized T-scores for visual reception (VR), fine motor (FM), expressive language (EL), receptive language (RL), gross motor (GM) and early learning composite (ELC) scores (Mullen, 1995) were obtained from MSEL tests and their relationships with CVR were analyzed using regression model as well, with age and gender as covariates. All analyses were conducted using SPM12 with a primary threshold of p<0.0005, cluster extent threshold of 1500 continuous voxels and Family-Wise Error (FWE) correction at p<0.05.
Data processing: As shown in Figure 1B, BOLD images were first pre-processed and then temporally filtered using the optimal frequency range of 0 to 0.1164Hz (Liu et al., 2021). The resulted filtered signal time-courses were averaged across whole brain to obtain the reference time course. Then the relative CVR index was calculated by regressing the voxel-wise BOLD signal against the reference signal. CVR maps for all subjects were registered to their respective month templates (Figure 1C) (Chen et al., 2022) and then to the March template with the purpose of voxel-wise analyses.
Voxel-wise analyses: Multiple regression analysis was first used to examine the effect of age or gender on CVR. Then, age-standardized T-scores for visual reception (VR), fine motor (FM), expressive language (EL), receptive language (RL), gross motor (GM) and early learning composite (ELC) scores (Mullen, 1995) were obtained from MSEL tests and their relationships with CVR were analyzed using regression model as well, with age and gender as covariates. All analyses were conducted using SPM12 with a primary threshold of p<0.0005, cluster extent threshold of 1500 continuous voxels and Family-Wise Error (FWE) correction at p<0.05.
Results:
Our results (Figure 2A) demonstrated that there was a significant positive relationship between CVR and age at prefrontal lobe (bilateral frontal pole), temporal lobe (bilateral inferior temporal gyrus, bilateral fusiform gyrus), the right lingual gyrus, the right parietal lobe (superior parietal gyrus, precuneus), as well as the central sulcus (right paracentral lobules, right precentral gyrus), which are reported to be associated with visual processing (Roland and Gulyás, 1995), visual memory (Gilboa, 2004) and movement (Yousry, 1997); Besides, CVR in deep white matter significantly declined with age, reflecting an inclination of blood supply towards the gray matter after birth. However, we did not find significant developmental differences in CVR between males and females.
As for the subset with MSEL scores, CVR in the left precentral gyrus, thalamus, and brainstem had a significant positive association with gross motor T-score, reflecting the need of cerebrovascular supply for motor tasks (Yousry, 1997) during early development.
The p-values and number of voxels for all significant clusters were given in Figure 2B. Additionally, Figure 2C presents the scatterplot of the average CVR of each significant cluster and its corresponding regressions.
As for the subset with MSEL scores, CVR in the left precentral gyrus, thalamus, and brainstem had a significant positive association with gross motor T-score, reflecting the need of cerebrovascular supply for motor tasks (Yousry, 1997) during early development.
The p-values and number of voxels for all significant clusters were given in Figure 2B. Additionally, Figure 2C presents the scatterplot of the average CVR of each significant cluster and its corresponding regressions.
Conclusions:
In this study, for the first, we mapped the CVR during early 6 months in life using a resting-state based method and identified key regions during brain development, as well as areas associated with early learning ability, supporting the potential role of CVR as a biomarker in the cerebrovascular diseases during early infancy.
Lifespan Development:
Early life, Adolescence, Aging
Normal Brain Development: Fetus to Adolescence
Novel Imaging Acquisition Methods:
BOLD fMRI 2
Physiology, Metabolism and Neurotransmission :
Cerebral Metabolism and Hemodynamics 1
Keywords:
Blood
Cerebral Blood Flow
Cognition
Development
FUNCTIONAL MRI
PEDIATRIC
Other - Cerebrovascular reactivity
1|2Indicates the priority used for review
Provide references using author date format
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