Abstract #4308

Age Associated Changes in Subcortical Structures in Preadolescent Children

L. Tugan Muftuler¹, Angela T. Cheriyan², Kevin M. Head³, Min-Ying Su¹, Claudia Buss³, Curt A. Sandman³, Elysia P. Davis³

¹Center for Functional Onco-imaging, University of California, Irvine, CA, United States; ²Biological Sciences, University of California, Irvine, CA; ³Psychiatry & Human Behavior, University of California, Orange, CA

There is evidence that abnormal brain development during childhood is a risk factor for various cognitive and psychiatric disorders. Although cortical development from childhood until early adulthood has been studied by several groups, there is very limited normative data available on subcortical structures of typically developing children, especially within the narrow preadolescent age range. We analyzed high resolution MRI images from 103 normally developing preadolescent children to study age associated differences in major subcortical structures. We found that the major age-associated changes were seen in the medial dorsal thalamus between ages 6 and 10.