Abstract
Thinning of the corpus callosum (CC) is often observed in individuals who were born very preterm. Damage to the CC during neurodevelopment may be associated with poor neuropsychological performance. This study aimed to explore any evidence of CC pathology in adolescents aged 14-15 years who were born very preterm, and to investigate the relationship between CC areas and verbal skills. Seventy-two individuals born before 33 weeks of gestation and 51 age- and sex-matched full-term controls received structural MRI and neuropsychological assessment. Total CC area in very preterm adolescents was 7.5% smaller than in controls, after adjusting for total white matter volume (P = 0.015). The absolute size of callosal subregions differed between preterm and full-term adolescents: preterm individuals had a 14.7% decrease in posterior (P < 0.0001) and an 11.6% decrease in mid-posterior CC quarters (P = 0.029). Preterm individuals who had experienced periventricular haemorrhage and ventricular dilatation in the neonatal period showed the greatest decrease in CC area. In very preterm boys only, verbal IQ and verbal fluency scores were positively associated with total mid-sagittal CC size and mid-posterior surface area. These results suggest that very preterm birth adversely affects the development of the CC, particularly its posterior quarter, and this impairs verbal skills in boys.
Highlights
One of the most common brain abnormalities in individuals born very preterm is thinning of the corpus callosum (CC), of the posterior body (Cooke and Abernethy, 1999; Stewart et al, 1999; Peterson et al, 2000)
As there is some evidence that the size of the CC may be affected by hand dominance (Witelson, 1985, 1989), we explored the relationship between CC surface area and handedness in a subset of the sample, for whom data were available at age 8 and/or 14 years; we carried out a multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA), defined by two between-subject group factors [group and handedness] and a four-level within-subject factor
Our study revealed that those preterm individuals who had experienced uncomplicated periventricular haemorrhage (PVH) did not differ in the surface area of their CC compared with their counterparts with normal ultrasound results
Summary
One of the most common brain abnormalities in individuals born very preterm is thinning of the corpus callosum (CC), of the posterior body (splenium) (Cooke and Abernethy, 1999; Stewart et al, 1999; Peterson et al, 2000). Such injury may be partly explained by the vulnerability of the developing CC to hypoxic–ischaemic damage and haemorrhage, possibly due to the intrinsic vulnerability of immature oligodendrocytes (Back et al, 2001). A functional MRI (fMRI) study with a subset of individuals who took part in this study used visual and auditory tasks and showed that the very preterm subjects with damaged CCs (as qualitatively rated by two neuroradiologists) had significantly different neuronal activation patterns compared with a control group, and a group
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