Specific impairment of functional connectivity between language regions in former early preterms.
Very preterm (PT) birth (≤32 weeks of gestation) carries a high risk for an adverse neurodevelopmental outcome. In recent years, the importance of neurocognitive deficits in the language domain has been increasingly recognized, which can be well-characterized using neuropsychological testing and noninvasive imaging approaches. We compared former early PT born children and adolescents (PT, n = 29, 20M) and typically developing children (TD, n = 19, 7M), using conventional fMRI group analyses as well as functional connectivity analyses. We found only small regions with significantly different group activation (PT > TD) but significantly stronger connectivity between superior temporal lobe (STL) language regions in TD participants. There were also significant differences in local and global network efficiency (TD > PT). Surprisingly, there was a stronger connectivity of STL regions with non-STL regions both intrahemispherically and interhemispherically in PT participants, suggesting the coexistence of reduced and increased connectivity in the language network of former PTs. Very similar results were obtained when using task-based versus resting state functional connectivity approaches. Finally, lateralization of functional connectivity correlated with verbal comprehension abilities, suggesting that a more bilateral language comprehension representation is associated with better performance. Our results underline the importance of interhemispheric crosstalk for language comprehension.
Department of Pediatric Neurology and Developmental Medicine, Children's Hospital, Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Germany; Experimental Pediatric Neuroimaging, Children's Hospital and Department of Neuroradiology, Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Germany.
Marko
M
Wilke
Till-Karsten
TK
Hauser
Ingeborg
I
Krägeloh-Mann
Karen
K
Lidzba
D000293:Adolescent; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001921:Brain / Q000098:blood supply / Q000503:physiopathology*; D001931:Brain Mapping; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D007839:Functional Laterality; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000209:etiology* / Q000473:pathology; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging; D008297:Male; D009434:Neural Pathways / Q000098:blood supply / Q000503:physiopathology*; D010100:Oxygen / Q000097:blood; D047928:Premature Birth / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology*
D010100:Oxygen
functional magnetic resonance imaging; language impairment; prematurity; resting state functional connectivity; task-based functional connectivity