Elucidating the gene regulatory networks that govern pharyngeal arch artery(PAA) development is an important goal, as such knowledge can help to identify new genes involved in cardiovascular disease. The transcription factor Tbx1 plays a vital role in PAA development and is a major contributor to cardiovascular disease associated with DiGeorge syndrome. In this report, we used various genetic approaches to reveal part of a signalling network by which Tbx1 controls PAA development in mice. We investigated the crucial role played by the homeobox-containing transcription factor Gbx2 downstream of Tbx1. We found that PAA formation requires the pharyngeal surface ectoderm as a key signalling centre from which Gbx2, in response to Tbx1, triggers essential directional cues to the adjacent cardiac neural crest cells (cNCCs)en route to the caudal PAAs. Abrogation of this signal generates cNCC patterning defects leading to PAA abnormalities. Finally, we showed that the Slit/Robo signalling pathway is activated during cNCC migration and that components of this pathway are affected in Gbx2 and Tbx1mutant embryos at the time of PAA development. We propose that the spatiotemporal control of this tightly orchestrated network of genes participates in crucial aspects of PAA development.

Aortic arch artery patterning defects account for approximately 20% of congenital cardiovascular malformations and are observed frequently in velocardiofacial syndrome (VCFS). In the current study, we screened for chromosome rearrangements in patients suspected of VCFS, but who lacked a 22q11 deletion or TBX1 mutation. One individual displayed hemizygous CHD7, which encodes a chromodomain protein. CHD7 haploinsufficiency is the major cause of coloboma, heart defect, atresia choanae, retarded growth and development, genital hypoplasia, and ear anomalies/deafness (CHARGE) syndrome, but this patient lacked the major diagnostic features of coloboma and choanal atresia. Because a subset of CHARGE cases also display 22q11 deletions, we explored the embryological relationship between CHARGE and VCSF using mouse models. The hallmark of Tbx1 haploinsufficiency is hypo/aplasia of the fourth pharyngeal arch artery (PAA) at E10.5. Identical malformations were observed in Chd7 heterozygotes, with resulting aortic arch interruption at later stages. Other than Tbx1, Chd7 is the only gene reported to affect fourth PAA development by haploinsufficiency. Moreover, Tbx1 +/-;Chd7 +/-double heterozygotes demonstrated a synergistic interaction during fourth PAA, thymus, and ear morphogenesis. We could not rescue PAA morphogenesis by restoring neural crest Chd7 expression. Rather, biallelic expression of Chd7 and Tbx1 in the pharyngeal ectoderm was required for normal PAA development.

We automatically quantify patterns of normal cortical folding in the developing fetus from in utero MR images (N=80) over a wide gestational age (GA) range (21.7 to 38.9weeks). This work on data from healthy subjects represents a first step towards characterising abnormal folding that may be related to pathology, facilitating earlier diagnosis and intervention. The cortical boundary was delineated by automatically segmenting the brain MR image into a number of key structures. This utilised a spatio-temporal atlas as tissue priors in an expectation-maximization approach with second order Markov random field (MRF) regularization to improve the accuracy of the cortical boundary estimate. An implicit high resolution surface was then used to compute cortical folding measures. We validated the automated segmentations with manual delineations and the average surface discrepancy was of the order of 1mm. Eight curvature-based folding measures were computed for each fetal cortex and used to give summary shape descriptors. These were strongly correlated with GA (R(2)=0.99) confirming the close link between neurological development and cortical convolution. This allowed an age-dependent non-linear model to be accurately fitted to the folding measures. The model supports visual observations that, after a slow initial start, cortical folding increases rapidly between 25 and 30weeks and subsequently slows near birth. The model allows the accurate prediction of fetal age from an observed folding measure with a smaller error where growth is fastest. We also analysed regional patterns in folding by parcellating each fetal cortex using a nine-region anatomical atlas and found that Gompertz models fitted the change in lobar regions. Regional differences in growth rate were detected, with the parietal and posterior temporal lobes exhibiting the fastest growth, while the cingulate, frontal and medial temporal lobes developed more slowly.

The fetal brain shows accelerated growth in the latter half of gestation, and these changes can be captured by 2D and 3D biometry measurements. The aim of this study was to quantify brain growth in normal fetuses using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and to produce reference biometry data and a freely available centile calculator (https://www.developingbrain.co.uk/fetalcentiles/). A total of 127 MRI examinations (1.5 T) of fetuses with a normal brain appearance (21–38 gestational weeks) were included in this study. 2D and 3D biometric parameters were measured from slice-to-volume reconstructed images, including 3D measurements of supratentorial brain tissue, lateral ventricles, cortex, cerebellum and extra-cerebral CSF and 2D measurements of brain biparietal diameter and fronto-occipital length, skull biparietal diameter and occipitofrontal diameter, head circumference, transverse cerebellar diameter, extra-cerebral CSF, ventricular atrial diameter, and vermis height, width, and area. Centiles were constructed for each measurement. All participants were invited for developmental follow-up. All 2D and 3D measurements, except for atrial diameter, showed a significant positive correlation with gestational age. There was a sex effect on left and total lateral ventricular volumes and the degree of ventricular asymmetry. The 5th, 50th, and 95th centiles and a centile calculator were produced. Developmental follow-up was available for 73.1% of cases [mean chronological age 27.4 (±10.2) months]. We present normative reference charts for fetal brain MRI biometry at 21–38 gestational weeks. Developing growth trajectories will aid in the better understanding of normal fetal brain growth and subsequently of deviations from typical development in high-risk pregnancies or following premature delivery.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s00429-016-1342-6) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Individual phase differences in PER3 expression during a constant routine correlate with sleep timing during entrainment. PER3 expression in leukocytes represents a useful molecular marker of the circadian processes governing sleep-wake timing.

HighlightsDS fetal and neonatal brains show deviations from typical development.Whole brain and cerebellar volumes are smaller in DS from 21 weeks gestation.Cortical volumes in DS appear to deviate around the third trimester.Structural abnormalities are likely substrates for later neurocognitive impairment.

Motion correction is a key element for imaging the fetal brain in-utero using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI). Maternal breathing can introduce motion, but a larger effect is frequently due to fetal movement within the womb. Consequently, imaging is frequently performed slice-by-slice using single shot techniques, which are then combined into volumetric images using slice-tovolume reconstruction methods (SVR). For successful SVR, a key preprocessing step is to isolate fetal brain tissues from maternal anatomy before correcting for the motion of the fetal head. This has hitherto been a manual or semi-automatic procedure. We propose an automatic method to localize and segment the brain of the fetus when the image data is acquired as stacks of 2D slices with anatomy misaligned due to fetal motion. We combine this segmentation process with a robust motion correction method, enabling the segmentation to be refined as the reconstruction proceeds. The fetal brain localization process uses Maximally Stable Extremal Regions (MSER), which are classified using a Bag-of-Words model with Scale-Invariant Feature Transform (SIFT) features. The segmentation process is a patch-based propagation of the MSER regions selected during detection, combined with a Conditional Random Field (CRF). The gestational age (GA) is used to incorporate prior knowledge about the size and volume of the fetal brain into the detection and segmentation process. The method was tested in a ten-fold cross-validation experiment on 66 datasets of healthy fetuses whose GA ranged from 22 to 39 weeks. In 85% of the tested cases, our proposed method produced a motion corrected volume of a relevant quality for clinical diagnosis, thus removing the need for manually delineating the contours of the brain before motion correction. Our method automatically generated as a side-product a segmentation of the reconstructed fetal brain with a mean Dice score of 93%, which can be used for further processing.

Mild cerebral ventricular enlargement is associated with schizophrenia, autism, epilepsy, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Fetal ventriculomegaly is the most common central nervous system (CNS) abnormality affecting 1% of fetuses and is associated with cognitive, language, and behavioral impairments in childhood. Neurodevelopmental outcome is partially predictable by the 2-dimensional size of the ventricles in the absence of other abnormalities. We hypothesized that isolated fetal ventriculomegaly is a marker of altered brain development characterized by relative overgrowth and aimed to quantify brain growth using volumetric magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in fetuses with isolated ventriculomegaly. Fetal brain MRI (1.5 T) was performed in 60 normal fetuses and 65 with isolated ventriculomegaly, across a gestational age range of 22-38 weeks. Volumetric analysis of the ventricles and supratentorial brain structures was performed on 3-dimensional reconstructed datasets. Fetuses with isolated ventriculomegaly had increased brain parenchyma volumes when compared with the control cohort (9.6%, P < 0.0001) with enlargement restricted to the cortical gray matter (17.2%, P = 0.002). The extracerebral cerebrospinal fluid and third and fourth ventricles were also enlarged. White matter, basal ganglia, and thalamic volumes were not significantly different between cohorts. The presence of relative cortical overgrowth in fetuses with ventriculomegaly may represent the neurobiological substrate for cognitive, language, and behavioral deficits in these children.