Feng Shi1, Yong Fan1, Songyuan Tang1, John Gilmore2, Weili Lin1, Dinggang Shen1
1Department of Radiology and BRIC, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA; 2Department of Psychiatry, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA
Major human brain structure development occurs in the first two years of life. A longitudinal MR image acquisition protocol is designed and 28 subjects were scanned at postnatal age of several weeks, one year and two years old. By using a dedicated longitudinal neonatal brain segmentation approach and 4-dimensional nonlinear registration algorithm, the anatomical correspondence among the three time points was achieved. Result showed the cerebellum grew rapidly in the first year and slow down in the second year, as well as gray matter. Different lobes manifested heterochronous growth patterns.