fMRI of Brain Development in Newborn Infants

描述（由申请人提供） 功能性磁共振成像（fMRI）已被用于相当成功的 成人和年龄较大的儿童的脑功能的非侵入性映射， 检测响应于各种感官刺激的激活。总目标 这个探索性补助金在儿科脑疾病的建议是发展 并评估功能磁共振成像检测神经元激活响应的感觉 非镇静足月儿和早产儿的刺激。脑功能磁共振成像研究 婴儿对感官刺激的反应很少， 这种技术监测发育中成熟变化的能力 大脑仍然是未开发的。 我们的具体目标是利用回波平面脑成像， 证明了功能磁共振成像检测非镇静状态下皮质激活的能力。 足月和早产儿对视觉和听觉刺激的反应; [2] 证明fMR 1监测反应随时间变化的能力 27岁的婴儿的听觉和视觉皮层区域对感官刺激的反应 到月经后52周的年龄，并确定是否有可检测的fMR 1 [3]第三，要注意的是，要注意的是， 功能磁共振成像检测大脑活动的能力， 语言符号，从而评估语言的发展 新生儿大脑发育中的专业化。以先前的工作为指导， 通过对婴儿的非影像学研究，我们提出， 与语言能力有关的能力已经存在于非镇静剂的大脑中 足月新生儿 总的来说，这些研究将建立使用功能磁共振成像作为一个重要的 了解新生儿局部脑功能发育的工具 婴儿，非侵入性和无镇静。我们小组有学习的经验 损伤对大脑发育的影响，利用这项新技术， 我们的长期目标是检测大脑中的功能差异， 足月和极低出生体重早产儿的发育。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant) Functional MRI (fMRI) has been used with considerable success for the non-invasive mapping of cerebral function in adults and older children, and for detecting activation in response to various sensory stimuli. The overall goal of this Exploratory Grant in Pediatric Brain Disorders proposal is to develop and evaluate fMRI for detecting neuronal activation in response to sensory stimuli in non-sedated term and preterm infants. fMRI studies of cerebral activation in response to sensory stimulation in infants are rare, and the ability of this technique to monitor maturational changes in the developing brain remains largely unexplored. Our specific aims are [I] to utilize echo-planar cerebral imaging to demonstrate the ability of fMRI to detect cortical activation in non-sedated term and preterm infants in response to visual and auditory stimuli; [2] to demonstrate the ability of fMR1 to monitor changes over time in the responses of the auditory and visual cortical regions to sensory stimuli in infants of 27 to 52 weeks postmenstrual age and to determine if there are detectable fMR1 differences between the term and preterm subjects; and [3] to demonstrate the ability of fMRI to detect cerebral activity produced specifically in response to language tokens, and thereby to assess the development of language specialization within the developing newborn brain. Guided by prior work with nonimaging studies of infants, we propose to demonstrate that cortical regions relating to linguistic abilities already exist in the brains of non-sedated term neonates. Overall, these studies will establish the utility of using fMRI as an important tool for understanding the development of regional brain function in newborn infants, non-invasively and without sedation. Our group has experience studying the impact of injury on developing brain, and utilizing this novel technology, our long term goal is to detect functional differences in the cerebral development of term and very low birth weight preterm infants.