Abstract #2396

White and grey matter microstructural alterations and increased free-water content 13 years after very preterm birth

Claire Kelly^1,2, Thijs Dhollander², Ian Harding^3,4, Wasim Khan³, Richard Beare², Jeanie Cheong^1,5,6, Lex Doyle^1,5,6,7, Marc Seal^2,7, Deanne Thompson^1,2,7, and Peter Anderson^1,8

¹Victorian Infant Brain Studies (VIBeS), Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia, ²Developmental Imaging, Murdoch Children's Research Institute, Melbourne, Australia, ³Department of Neuroscience, Central Clinical School, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, ⁴Monash Biomedical Imaging, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia, ⁵Newborn Research, The Royal Women's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, ⁶Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, ⁷Department of Paediatrics, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia, ⁸Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health and School of Psychological Sciences, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia

We investigated the microstructural composition of the brain tissue in 130 adolescents born very preterm (VP) compared with 45 full-term (FT)-born controls. This involved a novel voxel-based analysis of white matter-like, grey matter-like, and fluid-like (free-water) diffusion tissue signal fractions derived by Single-Shell 3-Tissue Constrained Spherical Deconvolution. VP adolescents showed widespread, diverse microstructural alterations and increased free-water content across the brain parenchyma compared with FT controls, which were associated with perinatal risk factors and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes. This study expands knowledge of the neurobiological mechanisms by which VP birth adversely affects brain development in the long-term.

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