In a test of verbal fluency, children tended to activate cortex more widely than adults, but activation patterns for fluency appear to be established by middle childhood. Thus, functional MRI using verbal fluency paradigms may be applied to pediatric patient populations for determining language dominance in anterior brain regions. The greater activation found in children, including the right inferior frontal gyrus, may reflect developmental plasticity for the ongoing organization of neural networks, which underlie language capacity.
fMRI can be used to assess language lateralization noninvasively in children. It has the potential to replace current functional mapping techniques in patients, and to provide important data on brain development.
We reviewed cranial sonographic studies done on 108 normal newborn infants to determine the prevalence and variability in size of the cavum septi pellucidi (CSP). Infants were classified according to gestational age by 2-week intervals. At 24 weeks, only four normal scans were identified. Between 26 and 34 weeks, ten consecutive normal scans were used since all infants had a CSP. At 36, 38, and 40 weeks, all normal scans were counted in order to obtain a prevalence estimate. A CSP was seen in all normal infants below 36 weeks of gestational age. At 36, 38, and 40 weeks, only 69%, 54%, and 36%, respectively, had CSPs. There was no significant change in the width, depth, or area of the CSP with age, birth weight, or biparietal diameter. A CSP greater than 0.95 cm in width or greater than 0.81 cm in depth is outside the normal range and may represent anomalous development of the midline structures of the brain.
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