Functional Connectome of the Fetal Brain
Turk, Elise; van den Heuvel, Marion I.; Benders, Manon J.; de Heus, Roel; Franx, Arie; Manning, Janessa H.; Hect, Jasmine L.; Hernandez-Andrade, Edgar; Hassan, Sonia S.; Romero, Roberto; Kahn, René S.; Thomason, Moriah E.; van den Heuvel, Martijn P.
(2019) Journal of Neuroscience, volume 39, issue 49, pp. 9716 - 9724
(Article)
Abstract
Large-scale functional connectome formation and reorganization is apparent in the second trimester of pregnancy, making it a crucial and vulnerable time window in connectome development. Here we identified which architectural principles of functional connectome organization are initiated before birth, and contrast those with topological characteristics observed in the mature adult
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brain. A sample of 105 pregnant women participated in human fetal resting-state fMRI studies (fetal gestational age between 20 and 40 weeks). Connectome analysis was used to analyze weighted network characteristics of fetal macroscale brain wiring. We identified efficient network attributes, common functional modules, and high overlap between the fetal and adult brain network. Our results indicate that key features of the functional connectome are present in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. Understanding the organizational principles of fetal connectome organization may bring opportunities to develop markers for early detection of alterations of brain function.
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Keywords: brain development, fetal, functional connectivity, prenatal, resting-state fMRI, General Neuroscience, Journal Article
ISSN: 0270-6474
Publisher: Society for Neuroscience
Note: Funding Information: This work was supported by awards to M.E.T. from the National Institutes of Health, MH110793, ES026022, ES020957, and by a National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression Young Investigator Award; in partbythePerinatologyResearchBranch,DivisionofObstetricsandMaternal-FetalMedicine,DivisionofIntramural Research,EuniceKennedyShriverNationalInstituteofChildHealthandHumanDevelopment,NationalInstitutesof Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (NICHD/NIH/DHHS); and in part, with Federal funds from NICHD/NIH/DHHS under Contract HHSN275201300006C. Dr. Romero has contributed to this work as part of his Funding Information: officialdutiesasanemployeeoftheU.S.FederalGovernment.M.P.HwassponsoredbyafellowshipofMQbyaVIDI Grant from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (Grant 452-16-015). We thank Pavan Jella, Sophia Neuenfeldt, Toni Lewis, Bryan Turman, Tamara Qawasmeh, Joshua Hammond, and Sydney Brooks for their assis-tanceindataacquisitionandanalyses,LianneScholtensandSiemondeLangefortheirvaluablecontributiononthe graphical content of the paper, and participant families who generously shared their time. The authors declare no competing financial interests. *M.E.T. and M.P.v.d.H. contributed equally as last authors. Correspondence should be addressed to Elise Turk at E.turk-2@umcutrecht.nl. https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2891-18.2019 Copyright © 2019 the authors Publisher Copyright: Copyright © 2019 the authors
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