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Differential Development of Human Brain White Matter Tracts

Model-Based Trajectory Analyses.

• diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) provides information on white matter microstructure, including fractional anisotropy (FA).

Permutation-based non-parametric testing, using a general linear model containing linear and quadratic terms, revealed significant age-related changes in skeletonized white matter throughout the brain (p<0.05, corrected). We employed an F-test to determine optimal fit (linear vs. quadratic). Tracts for which the optimal fit was the inverted quadratic (‘U-shaped’) developmental trajectory are shown in blue, and those for which the optimal fit was the linear trajectory are shown in red.

Our results recapitulate well-established tracts (e.g., internal and external capsule, optic radiations, corpus callosum, cingulum bundle, cerebral peduncles) and subdivisions within tracts (e.g., corpus callosum, internal capsule). For all but one tract identified, age-related trajectories were curvilinear (i.e., inverted ‘U-shape’), with age-related increases during childhood and adolescence followed by decreases in middle adulthood. Identification of peaks in the trajectories suggests that age-related losses in fractional anisotropy occur as early as 23 years of age, with mean onset at 30 years of age.

(text from paper)

Links: Neural System - Postnatal | Magnetic Resonance Imaging | Neural System Development

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Reference

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0023437

Citation: Imperati D, Colcombe S, Kelly C, Di Martino A, Zhou J, et al. (2011) Differential Development of Human Brain White Matter Tracts. PLoS ONE 6(8): e23437. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0023437

Copyright: © 2011 Imperati et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.