Intrinsic functional brain architecture derived from graph theoretical analysis in the human fetus

The human brain undergoes dramatic maturational changes during late stages of fetal and early postnatal life. The importance of this period to the establishment of healthy neural connectivity is apparent in the high incidence of neural injury in preterm infants, in whom untimely exposure to ex-uteri...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2014-05, Vol.9 (5), p.e94423-e94423
Main Authors: Thomason, Moriah E, Brown, Jesse A, Dassanayake, Maya T, Shastri, Rupal, Marusak, Hilary A, Hernandez-Andrade, Edgar, Yeo, Lami, Mody, Swati, Berman, Susan, Hassan, Sonia S, Romero, Roberto
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Age
Artificial neural networks
Biology and Life Sciences
Brain
Brain - embryology
Brain - physiology
Brain architecture
Brain Mapping
Brain research
Connectome
Data processing
Female
Fetus
Fetuses
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Functional morphology
Gestational Age
Gynecology
Gyrus Cinguli - physiology
Humans
Infants
Information processing
Magnetic resonance
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Medicine
Medicine and Health Sciences
Mimicry
Modularity
Nervous system
Neural networks
Neuroimaging
Neurosciences
Obstetrics
Pediatrics
Physical Sciences
Pregnancy
Premature infants
Social networks
Theoretical analysis
Uterus
Young Adult
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Summary:The human brain undergoes dramatic maturational changes during late stages of fetal and early postnatal life. The importance of this period to the establishment of healthy neural connectivity is apparent in the high incidence of neural injury in preterm infants, in whom untimely exposure to ex-uterine factors interrupts neural connectivity. Though the relevance of this period to human neuroscience is apparent, little is known about functional neural networks in human fetal life. Here, we apply graph theoretical analysis to examine human fetal brain connectivity. Utilizing resting state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from 33 healthy human fetuses, 19 to 39 weeks gestational age (GA), our analyses reveal that the human fetal brain has modular organization and modules overlap functional systems observed postnatally. Age-related differences between younger (GA
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0094423