Brain Imaging of Newborns with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome

患有胎儿酒精综合症的新生儿的脑部成像

• 批准号: 8192312
• 负责人: SANDRA W. JACOBSON
• 金额: $ 24.25万
• 依托单位: WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-09-01 至 2013-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8192312
• 关键词: Adult; Affect; Alcohol abuse; Alcohol dependence; Alcohol-Related Disorders; Alcohols; Algorithms; Atlases; Award; Behavioral; Biological Markers; Blinking; Brain; Brain imaging; Brain region; Brain scan; Caring; Cerebellum; Cerebrum; Child; Childhood; Corpus Callosum; Data; Data Set; Diagnosis; Disease; Early identification; Education; Environmental Exposure; Etiology; Female of child bearing age; Fetal Alcohol Exposure; Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder; Fetal Alcohol Syndrome; Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Funding; Future; General Hospitals; Gestational Age; Grant; Gray unit of radiation dose; Growth; Hand; Health; Heavy Drinking; Hippocampus (Brain); Image; Impairment; Incidence; Infant; Label; Learning; Life; Location; Long-Term Effects; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Maps; Massachusetts; Measures; Methods; Mothers; Nature; Neonatal; Neurocognitive; Neurologic Examination; Neurological outcome; Neurons; Newborn Infant; Noise; Parietal; Parietal Lobe; Performance; Population; Postpartum Period; Pregnancy; Pregnant Women; Procedures; Public Health; Recording of previous events; Recruitment Activity; Research; Sampling; Scanning; School-Age Population; Shapes; Site; South Africa; Structure; Techniques; Temporal Lobe; Testing; Third Pregnancy Trimester; Time; Variant; alcohol exposure; base; behavioral impairment; caudate nucleus; conditioning; cost; cost effective; craniofacial; fetal; imaging Segmentation; improved; indexing; infancy; knowledge base; morphometry; myelination; neonate; neural circuit; neurobehavioral; neuroimaging; neuropsychological; parietal lobe cortex; prenatal exposure; relating to nervous system; tool; white matter

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Since 1998, we have been collaborating on research on fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) in Cape Town, South Africa, where the incidence of FAS is among the highest in the world. In 2005 we were funded to implement the first fMRI studies in South Africa and in 2008 were awarded an R01 to use neuroimaging in school-age children to examine the cerebellar neural circuitry related to eyeblink conditioning (EBC), which we recently identified as a strikingly reliable potential biomarker of FAS and other alcohol-related disorders. The R01 also includes funding to recruit heavy drinking pregnant women and controls for a neurobehavioral study of EBC at 6 months postpartum. Fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, a world-wide public health problem whose long-term effects include significant neurocognitive impairment, is difficult to diagnose in infancy. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies with adults and children have shown that specific brain regions are disproportionately affected. Volumetric MRI measures in the first weeks of life may detect early differences in regional volumes and provide a more sensitive index of future neurological outcome than standard newborn behavioral or neurological examinations. To date, few studies have been conducted using MRI cerebral morphometry segmentation in neonates, which currently requires hand labeling and is, therefore, too labor intensive for large data sets. We propose to conduct the first structural MRI study in newborns exposed prenatally to alcohol. Two groups of pregnant women will be recruited-35 heavy alcohol users and 35 non-exposed controls. The aims are (1) to determine which brain structures are disproportionately smaller in neonates with heavy prenatal alcohol exposure; (2) to test whether prenatal exposure- related volumetric reductions in specific neonatal brain regions predict neurobehavioral performance deficits at 6 months; and (3) to use information-theoretic registration techniques to examine alterations in shape and location of specific brain structures in prenatally exposed neonates. An atlas will be constructed from the data from healthy neonatal controls to validate and refine automated segmentation tools currently being developed at Massachusetts General Hospital to permit faster and more efficient labeling of infant brain structures. PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE: Fetal alcohol syndrome (FAS) and alcohol-related disorders are an important worldwide health problem and a major public health issue in South Africa, whose long-term effects include significant, irreversible neurocognitive and behavioral impairment. Since FAS and alcohol-related disorders are difficult to diagnose in infancy, identification of morphological effects in specific brain regions in the neonate can advance understanding of the etiology of these disorders, improve diagnosis, and permit earlier identification of affected children. This research will also provide high quality neonatal neuroimaging data from healthy newborns to be used in refinement of automated methods for segmentation of infant brain scans.

描述（由申请人提供）：自1998年以来，我们一直在南非开普敦合作进行胎儿酒精综合征（FAS）的研究，那里的FAS发病率是世界上最高的。2005年，我们获得资助，在南非进行了第一次功能性磁共振成像研究，并于2008年获得R 01，在学龄儿童中使用神经成像来检查与眨眼条件反射（EBC）相关的小脑神经回路，我们最近确定这是FAS和其他酒精相关疾病的惊人可靠的潜在生物标志物。R 01还包括招募大量饮酒的孕妇和对照组进行产后6个月EBC神经行为研究的资金。胎儿酒精谱系障碍是一个世界性的公共卫生问题，其长期影响包括严重的神经认知障碍，在婴儿期很难诊断。对成人和儿童的磁共振成像（MRI）研究表明，特定的大脑区域受到不成比例的影响。在出生后的第一周内进行体积MRI测量可以检测到区域体积的早期差异，并提供比标准新生儿行为或神经学检查更敏感的未来神经学结果指标。迄今为止，很少有研究已经进行了使用MRI脑形态测量分割的新生儿，目前需要手工标记，因此，劳动密集型的大数据集。我们建议对产前暴露于酒精的新生儿进行第一次结构MRI研究。将招募两组孕妇-35名重度酒精使用者和35名未暴露的对照组。目的是（1）确定产前大量接触酒精的新生儿的哪些大脑结构小得不成比例;（2）测试特定新生儿大脑区域中产前接触相关的体积减少是否可以预测6个月时的神经行为表现缺陷;及（3）使用资料─理论配准技术，以检查产前暴露的新生儿特定脑结构的形状和位置的变化。将根据健康新生儿对照组的数据构建一个图谱，以验证和完善马萨诸塞州总医院目前正在开发的自动分割工具，从而更快、更有效地标记婴儿大脑结构。 公共卫生关系：胎儿酒精综合征（FAS）和酒精相关疾病是一个重要的全球性健康问题，也是南非的一个主要公共卫生问题，其长期影响包括严重的、不可逆的神经认知和行为障碍。由于FAS和酒精相关疾病在婴儿期很难诊断，因此识别新生儿特定脑区的形态学效应可以促进对这些疾病病因的理解，提高诊断水平，并允许早期识别受影响的儿童。这项研究还将提供来自健康新生儿的高质量新生儿神经成像数据，用于改进婴儿脑部扫描分割的自动化方法。