Neurodevelopmental Patterns of Early Postnatal White Matter Maturation Represent Distinct Underlying Microstructure and Histology

Abstract

During the early postnatal period, cerebral white matter undergoes rapid maturation through a complex series of interrelated cellular and histogenetic processes. Accurate quantification of these processes is important for improving understanding of early brain development, developmental abnormalities related to prematurity, and neurodevelopmental diseases. Past efforts have used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to track these developmental processes in vivo. However, most previous studies have relied on a single imaging modality data or have often been limited by small samples and analytics that do not evaluate complex multivariate imaging patterns. Here, we applied an advanced unsupervised multivariate pattern analysis technique, non-negative matrix factorization (NMF), to T₂w/T₁w signal ratio maps from a large cohort of newborns (Developing Human Connectome Project [dHCP], n=342), revealing patterns of coordinated white matter maturation. These patterns showed divergent age-related maturational trajectories and differential susceptibility to premature birth, which were replicated in an independent large sample of newborns (Early Life Adversity, Biological Embedding, and Risk for Developmental Precursors of Mental Disorders [eLABE], n=239). Furthermore, we showed that T₂w/T₁w signal variations in white matter maturational patterns are explained by differential contributions of white matter microstructure indices (i.e., free water content and neurite density index) derived from neurite orientation dispersion and density imaging (NODDI) modeling of diffusion-weighted MRI. Finally, we demonstrated how white matter maturation patterns relate to distinct histological features by comparing our findings with postmortem late fetal/early postnatal brain tissue staining. Together, these results delineate a novel MRI representation of white matter microstructural and histological reorganization during early postnatal development.

Keywords: Postnatal neurodevelopment, white matter, MRI, Diffusion-weighted MRI, MRI-histology correlation