M Ash Ederies1, 2, Christina Malamateniou1, Tomoki Arichi2, Nora Tusor2, Serena J. Counsell2, Joanna M. Allsop1, Tayyib Hayat1, Joseph V. Hajnal1, Mary A. Ru
1Robert Steiner MRI Unit, Imaging Sciences Department, MRC CSC, Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom; 2Centre for the Developing Brain, Imaging Sciences Department, MRC CSC, Queen Charlottes and Chelsea Hospital, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom
Preterm birth is associated with grey and white matter abnormalities which translate into adverse neurodevelopment. There is disruption of thalamo-cortical connectivity as evident by reduced thalamic volume at term equivalent age. Our aim was to compare thalamic growth trajectories of the fetal, term and preterm populations. Manual thalamic segmentations were performed on data sets (T2w) corrected for motion using the Snapshot-to-Volume Reconstruction algorithm. The development of the thalamus for fetal and term populations modelled a single growth curve. The growth curve of the preterm group was consistent with the fetal group during mid-gestation but showed reduction beyond 35 weeks.