Objective : Recent advances in magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) technology now allow the measurement of brain cortex. Cortical thickness was known to be sensitive to developmental change in typically developing and clinical populations. There have been reports that children born preterm seem to have thinner brain cortex compared to the full term babies. It has been widely known that individuals with attention deficit disorders have cortical thinning. However, motor development in association with cortical thickness has not been much investigated. Therefore, the authors aimed to evaluate brain cortical thickness of the infants and its association with the motor outcome.
Methods : Between March, 2018 and June, 2019, medical records on developmental outcome were reviewed on children who had infantile brain magnetic images (MRI). Thirty one subjects had records of developmental outcome follow-up, and among them, MRI of 15 subjects were eligible for MRI analysis. We opted to use surface-based morphology analyses provided within the FreeSurfer software (Charlestown, MA, USA) (Figure 1). This fully automated tool has successfully been applied to a wide range of empirical research. In this study, we used the T1-weighted images. The motor outcome was assessed by Bayley-III motor scales composite scores. Those with motor scores< 85 were classified as the delayed motor group.
Results : The average MRI follow up time was 2.33±1.72 months. Assessment of motor development by Bayley motor scales was performed mean 7.72±4.3 months T(able 1). There was significant precnetral gyrus thickness between the groups, normal development group was 2.67±0.46 mm and the delayed group was 3.54±0.88 mm (p=0.046). The motor cortetx thickness was also unidentical on middle temporal, parsopercularis, parstriangularis, precuneus, rostral anteriorcingulate , superior parietal, superior temporal and insula (Table 2).
Conclusion: There were significant difference in brain cortical thickness in motor cortex and other parts of the brain, including frontal and parietal lobes in infants with delayed motor development. It has been known that the thinning of the brain cortical thickness seems to be the sign of the neural maturation in early childhood. Further studies with more participants should be performed to elucidate the association between motor cortex thickness and motor development.
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