Early joint cranial and brain development from fetal and pediatric imaging

项目总结 儿童早期颅骨和头骨畸形的破坏性影响影响到近25%的婴儿 单胎妊娠和50%的多胎妊娠。如果不及早诊断和有效治疗， 这些异常会影响大脑发育，导致认知障碍，颅内抬高 压力和运动障碍。临床医生有效诊断和治疗这些疾病的能力是 受阻于两件事：第一，对头盖骨和大脑如何正常生长和协同的了解有限。 第二，缺乏足够灵敏的成像技术来分析联合颅骨和 在健康和异常情况下的大脑发育。为了解决这些限制，一个强大的、 来自国家儿童医院、洛杉矶儿童医院、布朗儿童医院的跨学科协作团队 科罗拉多大学和亚利桑那州立大学提出目前的R01旨在开发 第一个标准化的脑和头骨出生前和出生后发育联合模型。这项工作是由 该团队先前的强大努力，其中他们独立地收集了大型的、标准的计算机数据集 婴儿和胎儿的断层扫描(CT)和磁共振(MR)图像，并初步实施 分析它们的工具，作为作为本项目一部分开发新方法的起点。这个团队的 假说是，局部皮质和颅骨形态的发展将密切相关。它 将使用以下目标进行测试：(1)开发定量成像工具来模拟健康的颅骨 婴儿的发育；(2)确定婴儿颅骨和皮质的形态和厚度的联合发育 婴儿；(3)建立胎儿大脑和颅骨发育的初步模型；(4)建立和 为临床医生和研究人员分发一个用户友好的工具箱。 该项目将是fi第一次对联合健康的颅脑发育进行体内系统研究。 在出生之后。因此，它将确定颅骨形状的典型变化及其与大脑的相关性 参数，根据年龄和性别进行调整。这里生成的规范模型将作为临床资源 用于对患有可疑疾病的儿童进行配对比较，这些疾病涉及异常的颅骨形状。 此外，精确的体内定量成像方法用于评估婴幼儿的关节颅脑形态 将在该项目中开发，并将作为医生更好地评估、诊断 并计划未来对婴儿颅骨畸形的治疗。

PROJECT SUMMARY The devastating impacts of early-childhood cranial and skull deformities affect nearly 25% of infants from single pregnancies and 50% of those from multiple pregnancies. If not diagnosed early and treated effectively, these abnormalities can impact brain development, leading to cognitive impairment, elevated intracranial pressure, and motor disabilities. Clinicians’ capacity to effectively diagnose and treat these disorders is hindered by two things: first, a limited understanding of how the cranium and brain normally grow and co- develop; and, second, a dearth of imaging techniques that are sensitive enough to analyze joint cranial and brain development in both healthy and abnormal instances. To address these limitations, a strong, interdisciplinary, collaborative team from Children’s National Hospital, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Brown University, University of Colorado and Arizona State University proposes the current R01 aimed at developing the first normative joint model of brain and cranium development before and after birth. This work is f ueled by the team’s robust prior efforts, in which they independently collected large, normative datasets of computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance (MR) images of infants and fetuses, and implemented preliminary tools to analyze them as a starting point for new methods to be developed as part of this project . The team’s hypothesis is that the development of regional cortical and cranial morphologies will be strongly associated. It will be tested using the following aims: (1) Develop quantitative imaging tools to model healthy cranial development in infants; (2) Determine the joint development of cranial and cortical shape and thickness in infants; (3) Develop a preliminary model of fetal brain and cranial growth across gestation; and (4) Build and disseminate a user-friendly toolbox for clinicians and researchers. This project will be the first systematic in-vivo study of joint healthy cranial and brain development before and after birth. As such, it will determine typical variations of the cranial shape and their correlations with brain parameters, adjusted for age and sex. The normative models generated here will serve as clinical resources for matched comparisons in individual children with suspected disorders that involve abnormal cranial shapes. Additionally, precise in-vivo quantitative imaging methods for assessing joint cranial and brain shape in inf ants will be developed in this project and will serve as invaluable tools for physicians to better assess, diagnose, and plan treatment for infant cranial deformities in the future.