Abstract #0738

Donohue P, Miller M, Wakana S, van Zijl P, Mori S, Zhang W, Zhang J, Evans A, Hermoye L

Development of association pathways in human brain from newborn to adult was studied using DTI. Images from 82 subjects were normalized to the widely used Montreal Neurological Institute (MNI) template using 12-parameter affine transformations. Subjects were organized into 7 age groups and average diffusion tensor images were generated for each group. After normalization, morphological changes of association pathways were studied in the common coordinates. We applied a voxel-based method to quantify these changes. The results identified the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) as the major tract maturing slowest in the postnatal stages.