Frontal-Cerebellar Development Assessed with MRI & fMRI

描述(由申请人提供)：拟议的研究旨在结合功能和结构磁共振方法，在发育正常的儿童和青少年以及有酒精暴露病史的儿童和青少年中，研究额叶-小脑系统结构发育和功能成熟之间的关系。高分辨率磁共振成像结合基于表面的计算算法将被用来测量额叶皮质的灰质厚度和小脑皮质局部的放射状扩张。相关分析将量化这些结构特征和功能激活之间的关系，在言语工作记忆任务中，在额叶和小脑皮质内的每个皮质表层点。这些研究将进一步加深我们对出生前接触酒精所导致的小脑结构和功能变化的理解。此外，这些研究是第一次尝试(1)表征小脑的结构成熟，(2)将小脑的发育与额叶皮质的发育联系起来，以及(3)询问这些区域的结构差异如何影响额叶-小脑工作记忆任务的功能激活。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed studies aim to combine functional and structural MRI methodology to examine relationships between structural development and functional maturation in the frontal-cerebellar system, in both normally developing children and adolescents and those with histories of prental alcohol exposure (ALC). High resolution MRI coupled with surface-based computational algorithms will be used to measure grey matter thickness in frontal cortex and localized radial expansion of the cerebellar cortex. Correlational analyses will quantify the relationship between these structural features and functional activation during a verbal working memory task at every cortical surface point within the frontal and cerebellar corticies. These studies will further our understanding of the structural and functional changes in the cerebellum that result from prenatal exposure to alcohol. In addition, these studies represent a first attempt at (1) characterizing the structural maturation of the cerebellum, (2) relating cerebellar development to that of the frontal cortex, and (3) interrogating how structural differences in these regions impact functional activation on a frontal-cerebllar working memory task.