title: The neural basis of response inhibition and attention allocation as mediated by gestational age.
abstract: Children and adolescents born before 33 weeks of gestation, that is very preterm, may experience problems with the inhibitory control of behaviour and the allocation of attention. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have found preterm-born adolescents to display altered brain activation in tasks measuring inhibitory control. However, adolescence is a period during which dynamic changes are occurring in the brain, and it is not yet known whether these functional alterations will persist into adulthood, or instead reflect developmental delay. This study used an event-related fMRI Go/No-Go motor response inhibition paradigm, which included an oddball task measuring attention allocation to infrequent stimuli, to compare blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) signal between 26 preterm-born adults and 21 controls. Group differences in brain activation were observed in inhibition and attention networks during both conditions. During motor response inhibition, preterm-born participants compared to controls showed increased BOLD signal in medial and right lateral posterior brain regions, including middle temporal/occipital gyrus, posterior cingulate gyrus and precuneus. During oddball trials, preterm-born young adults displayed attenuated brain activation in a fronto-parietal-cerebellar network which is involved in mediating attention allocation. This pattern of reduced brain activation in task-relevant regions of attention allocation, and increased activation in posterior brain regions during inhibitory control, suggests adult alteration of inhibition and attention processing following very preterm birth, which may reflect a developmental delay.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College London, United Kingdom. e.lawrence@iop.kcl.ac.uk
authors.forename: Emma J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Lawrence
authors.forename: Katya
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Rubia
authors.forename: Robin M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Murray
authors.forename: Philip K
authors.initials: PK
authors.lastname: McGuire
authors.forename: Muriel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Walshe
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Allin
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Giampietro
authors.forename: Larry
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Rifkin
authors.forename: Steven C R
authors.initials: SC
authors.lastname: Williams
authors.forename: Chiara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Nosarti
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001921:Brain / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D005260:Female; D005865:Gestational Age; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007266:Inhibition, Psychological; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D011247:Pregnancy; D047928:Premature Birth / Q000503:physiopathology*