Robust cortical thickness estimation in the presence of partial volumes using adaptive diffusion equation.

Background: Automated estimation of cortical thickness in brain MRI is a critical step when investigating neuroanatomical population differences and changes associated with normal development and aging, as well as in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. The limited spatial resolution of the scanner leads to partial volume effects, where each voxel in the scanned image may represent a mixture of more than one type of tissue. Due to the highly convoluted structure of the cortex, this can have a significant impact on the accuracy of thickness estimates, particularly if a hard intensity threshold is used to delineate cortical boundaries.

Baby Open Brains: An open-source dataset of infant brain segmentations.

Reproducibility of neuroimaging research on infant brain development remains limited due to highly variable processing approaches. Progress towards reproducible pipelines is limited by a lack of benchmarks such as gold-standard brain segmentations. These segmentations are limited by the difficulty of infant brain segmentations, which require extensive neuroanatomical knowledge and are time-consuming in nature.

Impact of fetal inflammatory response on brain MRI abnormalities in extremely preterm infants.

Background And Objective: Neonates with fetal inflammatory response (FIR) are at increased risk of early-onset sepsis and death. We aimed to determine whether FIR and its severity are associated with brain abnormalities on MRI at term-equivalent age in extremely preterm infants.

Methods: A prospective cohort study of extremely preterm infants born between 2018 to 2021 with MRI scans completed at term equivalent age.

Chorioamnionitis and Two-Year Outcomes in Infants with Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy.

Objective: To determine if chorioamnionitis is associated with an increased risk of adverse 2-year outcomes among infants with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE).

Study Design: This cohort study included all infants with moderate to severe HIE treated with therapeutic hypothermia and enrolled on the High-dose Erythropoietin for Asphyxia and Encephalopathy Trial. Clinical chorioamnionitis (CC) was defined as a diagnosis made by a treating obstetrician and histologic chorioamnionitis (HC) was defined as placental inflammation observed on histology.

Baby Open Brains: An Open-Source Repository of Infant Brain Segmentations.

Reproducibility of neuroimaging research on infant brain development remains limited due to highly variable protocols and processing approaches. Progress towards reproducible pipelines is limited by a lack of benchmarks such as gold standard brain segmentations. Addressing this core limitation, we constructed the Baby Open Brains (BOBs) Repository, an open source resource comprising manually curated and expert-reviewed infant brain segmentations.

Quantifying brain development in the HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study: The magnetic resonance imaging and spectroscopy protocol.

The HEALthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) Study, a multi-site prospective longitudinal cohort study, will examine human brain, cognitive, behavioral, social, and emotional development beginning prenatally and planned through early childhood. The acquisition of multimodal magnetic resonance-based brain development data is central to the study's core protocol. However, application of Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) methods in this population is complicated by technical challenges and difficulties of imaging in early life.

Artificial Intelligence Outcome Prediction in Neonates with Encephalopathy (AI-OPiNE).

Purpose To develop a deep learning algorithm to predict 2-year neurodevelopmental outcomes in neonates with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy using MRI and basic clinical data. Materials and Methods In this study, MRI data of term neonates with encephalopathy in the High-dose Erythropoietin for Asphyxia and Encephalopathy (HEAL) trial (ClinicalTrials.gov: NCT02811263), who were enrolled from 17 institutions between January 25, 2017, and October 9, 2019, were retrospectively analyzed.

Integrated Short-TE and Hadamard-edited Multi-Sequence (ISTHMUS) for advanced MRS.

Background: To examine data quality and reproducibility using ISTHMUS, which has been implemented as the standardized MR spectroscopy sequence for the multi-site Healthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) study.

Methods: ISTHMUS is the consecutive acquisition of short-TE PRESS (32 transients) and long-TE HERCULES (224 transients) data with dual-TE water reference scans. Voxels were positioned in the centrum semiovale, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, posterior cingulate cortex and bilateral thalamus regions.

Integrated Short-TE and Hadamard-edited Multi-Sequence (ISTHMUS) for Advanced MRS.

Background: To examine data quality and reproducibility using ISTHMUS, which has been implemented as the standardized MR spectroscopy sequence for the multi-site Healthy Brain and Child Development (HBCD) study.

Methods: ISTHMUS is the consecutive acquisition of short-TE PRESS (32 transients) and long-TE HERCULES (224 transients) data with dual-TE water reference scans. Voxels were positioned in the centrum semiovale, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, posterior cingulate cortex and bilateral thalamus regions.

Untamed: Unconstrained Tensor Decomposition and Graph Node Embedding for Cortical Parcellation.

Cortical parcellation is fundamental to neuroscience, enabling the division of cerebral cortex into distinct, non-overlapping regions to support interpretation and comparison of complex neuroimaging data. Although extensive literature has investigated cortical parcellation and its connection to functional brain networks, the optimal spatial features for deriving parcellations from resting-state fMRI (rsfMRI) remain unclear. Traditional methods such as Independent Component Analysis (ICA) have been widely used to identify large-scale functional networks, while other approaches define disjoint cortical parcellations.

Brain Injury Outcomes after Adjuvant Erythropoietin Neuroprotection for Moderate or Severe Neonatal Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy: A Report from the HEAL Trial.

Introduction: Erythropoietin (Epo) is a putative neuroprotective therapy that did not improve overall outcomes in a phase 3 randomized controlled trial for neonates with moderate or severe hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). However, HIE is a heterogeneous disorder, and it remains to be determined whether Epo had beneficial effects on a subset of perinatal brain injuries.

Methods: This study was a secondary analysis of neuroimaging data from the High-dose Erythropoietin for Asphyxia and Encephalopathy (HEAL) Trial, which was conducted from 2016 to 2021 at 17 sites involving 23 US academic medical centers.

Correlating Quantitative MRI-based Apparent Diffusion Coefficient Metrics with 24-month Neurodevelopmental Outcomes in Neonates from the HEAL Trial.

Background Multiple qualitative scoring systems have been created to capture the imaging severity of hypoxic ischemic brain injury. Purpose To evaluate quantitative volumes of acute brain injury at MRI in neonates with hypoxic ischemic brain injury and correlate these findings with 24-month neurodevelopmental outcomes and qualitative brain injury scoring by radiologists. Materials and Methods In this secondary analysis, brain diffusion-weighted MRI data from neonates in the High-dose Erythropoietin for Asphyxia and Encephalopathy trial, which recruited participants between January 2017 and October 2019, were analyzed.

Continuous Automated Analysis Workflow for MRS Studies.

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) can non-invasively measure levels of endogenous metabolites in living tissue and is of great interest to neuroscience and clinical research. To this day, MRS data analysis workflows differ substantially between groups, frequently requiring many manual steps to be performed on individual datasets, e.g.

Assessment of Brain Magnetic Resonance and Spectroscopy Imaging Findings and Outcomes After Pediatric Cardiac Arrest.

Importance: Morbidity and mortality after pediatric cardiac arrest are chiefly due to hypoxic-ischemic brain injury. Brain features seen on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) after arrest may identify injury and aid in outcome assessments.

Objective: To analyze the association of brain lesions seen on T2-weighted MRI and diffusion-weighted imaging and N-acetylaspartate (NAA) and lactate concentrations seen on MRS with 1-year outcomes after pediatric cardiac arrest.

Cerebral Glucose Concentration in Neonatal Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy during Therapeutic Hypothermia.

Objective: To determine cerebral glucose concentration and its relationship with glucose infusion rate (GIR) and blood glucose concentration in neonatal encephalopathy during therapeutic hypothermia (TH).

Methods: This was an observational study in which cerebral glucose during TH was quantified by magnetic resonance (MR) spectroscopy and compared with mean blood glucose at the time of scan. Clinical data (gestational age, birth weight, GIR, sedative use) that could affect glucose use were collected.

How well does neonatal neuroimaging correlate with neurodevelopmental outcomes in infants with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy?

Background: In newborns with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE), the correlation between neonatal neuroimaging and the degree of neurodevelopmental impairment (NDI) is unclear.

Methods: Infants with HIE enrolled in a randomized controlled trial underwent neonatal MRI/MR spectroscopy (MRS) using a harmonized protocol at 4-6 days of age. The severity of brain injury was measured with a validated scoring system.

Identification of overlapping and interacting networks reveals intrinsic spatiotemporal organization of the human brain.

The human brain is a complex network that exhibits dynamic fluctuations in activity across space and time. Depending on the analysis method, canonical brain networks identified from resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) are typically constrained to be either orthogonal or statistically independent in their spatial and/or temporal domains. We avoid imposing these potentially unnatural constraints through the combination of a temporal synchronization process ("BrainSync") and a three-way tensor decomposition method ("NASCAR") to jointly analyze rs-fMRI data from multiple subjects.

Trial of Erythropoietin for Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy in Newborns.

Background: Neonatal hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy is an important cause of death as well as long-term disability in survivors. Erythropoietin has been hypothesized to have neuroprotective effects in infants with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy, but its effects on neurodevelopmental outcomes when given in conjunction with therapeutic hypothermia are unknown.

Methods: In a multicenter, double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial, we assigned 501 infants born at 36 weeks or more of gestation with moderate or severe hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy to receive erythropoietin or placebo, in conjunction with standard therapeutic hypothermia.

Mild hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE): timing and pattern of MRI brain injury.

Background: Mild hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) is increasingly recognized as a risk factor for neonatal brain injury. We examined the timing and pattern of brain injury in mild HIE.

Methods: This retrospective cohort study includes infants with mild HIE treated at 9 hospitals.