Abstract
The dynamic nature of growth and degenerative disease processes requires the design of sensitive strategies to detect, track and quantify structural change in the brain in its full spatial and temporal complexity1. Although volumes of brain substructures are known to change during development2, detailed maps of these dynamic growth processes have been unavailable. Here we report the creation of spatially complex, four-dimensional quantitative maps of growth patterns in the developing human brain, detected using a tensor mapping strategy with greater spatial detail and sensitivity than previously obtainable. By repeatedly scanning children (aged 3–15 years) across time spans of up to four years, a rostro-caudal wave of growth was detected at the corpus callosum, a fibre system that relays information between brain hemispheres. Peak growth rates, in fibres innervating association and language cortices, were attenuated after puberty, and contrasted sharply with a severe, spatially localized loss of subcortical grey matter. Conversely, at ages 3–6 years, the fastest growth rates occurred in frontal networks that regulate the planning of new actions. Local rates, profiles, and principal directions of growth were visualized in each individual child.
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Acknowledgements
We thank E. Sowell, M. Mega and J. Mazziotta for their advice and support. P.M.T. was supported by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the US Information Agency, and the US–UK Fulbright Commission. Additional research support was provided by a Human Brain Project grant to the International Consortium for Brain Mapping, funded jointly by NIMH and NIDA, by National Institutes of Health intramural funding (J.N.G.), and by the National Library of Medicine, National Science Foundation, and the NCRR.
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Thompson, P., Giedd, J., Woods, R. et al. Growth patterns in the developing brain detected by using continuum mechanical tensor maps. Nature 404, 190–193 (2000). https://doi.org/10.1038/35004593
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35004593
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