Changes of Dynamic Functional Connectivity Associated With Maturity in Late Preterm Infants

Abstract

Objective: To investigate the changes of dynamic functional connectivity (DFC) in late preterm infants, and assess whether these changes are associated with the indicators measuring the maturity of neonates. Methods: Resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) data of eligible neonates was acquired with a 3.0-T MRI scanner in the Department of Radiology, Daping Hospital, Army Medical University (Chongqing, China). After the selection of functional connectivity networks obtained by independent component analysis (ICA), a sliding-window approach was used to cluster all the windows into different states. Then the differences of temporal properties of DFC between groups were compared, and the association between these temporal properties and the degree of maturity was also explored in each state. Results: Eventually, 34 late preterm and 37 term neonates were included in the final analysis. Based on their data, 5 components were located in 5 networks: default-mode (DMN), dorsal attention (DAN), auditory (AUD), sensorimotor (SMN), and visual (VN). Then four reoccurring state patterns of functional connectivity were identified with the k-means clustering method. The late preterm group dwelled significantly longer in State III (late preterm: 33.57 ± 37.64 s, term: 18.50 ± 11.71 s; P = 0.03), which was characterized by general weaker connectivity between networks. Also, the correlation analysis shows the degree of maturity is negatively correlated to the dwell time and fractional windows in State III. Conclusion: Our findings suggested that compared with term infants, late preterm infants preferred to stay in a state with general weak connectivity between networks, but this preference declined as maturity increased.

Neonatal brain dynamic functional connectivity in term and preterm infants and its association with early childhood neurodevelopment

“…We observed that in newborn infants, whole-brain synchrony state A had the highest mean synchronisation, as well as largest fractional occupancy and dwelling times; thus suggesting that newborn infants spend a large amount of their time in a state of global phase synchrony which is a similar to the previously described dominant pattern of whole-brain synchronisation seen with both fMRI (Ma et al, 2020;Wen et al, 2020) and EEG (Tokariev et al, 2019). Together with prior studies, our work supports the idea that large scale activity plays a crucial role in early brain development.…”

“…This adds confidence to the results reported in earlier preliminary studies of dynamic FC in neonates around birth. For example, Ma et al, 2020, described dynamic functional connectivity with four brain states that encompassed default-mode, dorsal attention, auditory, sensory-motor, and visual networks in 37 term neonates (Ma et al, 2020). Here we establish a series of six brain states and describe associations with age at scan and postnatal days in a larger cohort with 324 term neonates.…”

“…Here, we extend this work to report that preterm birth also has an impact on dynamic functional connectivity, increasing fractional occupancy of occipital and frontal states and increased transitions from global to occipital state; and decreased dwelling for high whole-brain synchronisation state. Only one other study has investigated the effect of prematurity on dynamic functional connectivity (Ma et al, 2020). They reported significantly shorter mean dwelling times in a state with stronger connectivity between sensory-motor and auditory cortices and significantly higher mean dwelling times for a global state (Ma et al, 2020).…”

“…Only one other study has investigated the effect of prematurity on dynamic functional connectivity (Ma et al, 2020). They reported significantly shorter mean dwelling times in a state with stronger connectivity between sensory-motor and auditory cortices and significantly higher mean dwelling times for a global state (Ma et al, 2020). Direct comparison with our findings is challenging however, given the higher resolution of our study in terms of a larger number of ROIs included in our study but also the power available from our larger sample.…”

Developmental and aging resting functional magnetic resonance imaging brain state adaptations in adolescents and adults: A large N (>47K) study

“…Age‐related differences in FC are evident in the early developmental phase of the brain, with significant rewiring and topological restructuring over time (Fair et al, 2007 ; Power et al, 2010 ; Supekar et al, 2009 ). Existing time‐resolved brain connectivity research in infants, children, and adolescents has shown that the dynamic interregional interactions accurately reflect neonatal maturity (Ma et al, 2020 ), predict brain maturity (Qin et al, 2015 ), present marked changes (Faghiri et al, 2018 ), and variability with maturity (Hutchison & Morton, 2015 ; López‐Vicente et al, 2021 ), differ in atypical development (Liu et al, 2019 ; Rashid et al, 2018 ), characterize risk for neurodevelopment disorders (Marusak et al, 2017 ) and provide unique insights regarding pathophysiology (Sato et al, 2015 ). In contrast, brain connectivity again evolves in middle and late adulthood and is accompanied by gradual cognitive decline.…”