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Nutritive sucking abnormalities and brain microstructural abnormalities in infants with established brain injury: a pilot study

Journal of Perinatology volume 39, pages 1498–1508 (2019)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

Objective

To determine the relationship between nutritive sucking and microstructural integrity of sensorimotor tracts in newborns with brain injury.

Study design

Diffusion imaging was performed in ten newborns with brain injury. Nutritive sucking was assessed using Nfant®. The motor, sensory, and corpus callosum tracts were reconstructed via tractography. Fractional anisotropy, radial, axial, and mean diffusivity were estimated for these tracts. Multiple regression models were developed to test the association between sucking features and diffusion parameters.

Results

Low-sucking smoothness correlated with low-fractional anisotropy of motor tracts (p = 0.0096). High-sucking irregularity correlated with high-mean diffusivity of motor (p = 0.030) and corpus callosum tracts (p = 0.032). For sensory tracts, high-sucking irregularity (p = 0.018) and low-smoothness variability (p = 0.002) correlated with high-mean diffusivity.

Interpretation

We show a correlation between neuroimaging-demonstrated microstructural brain abnormalities and variations in sucking patterns of newborns. The consistency of this relationship should be shown on larger cohorts.

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Code availability

The MATLAB code for the nutritive sucking analyses is available upon request.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the participants and their families for taking part in this research. We would like to thank Helen Christou and Stella Kourembanas for their support and guidance throughout the project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory of Children’s Brain Dynamics, Division of Newborn Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Eleonora Tamilia, Maria Rocchi & Christos Papadelis

  2. Fetal Neonatal Neuroimaging and Developmental Science Center, Division of Newborn Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Eleonora Tamilia, Maria Rocchi, P Ellen Grant & Christos Papadelis

  3. Division of Newborn Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

    Marianna S. Parker & Anne Hansen

  4. Laboratory of Biomedical Robotics and Biomicrosystems, Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, Rome, Italy

    Fabrizio Taffoni

  5. Jane and John Justin Neurosciences Center, Cook Children’s Health Care System, Fort Worth, TX, USA

    Christos Papadelis

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  1. Eleonora Tamilia
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Correspondence to Christos Papadelis.

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Tamilia, E., Parker, M.S., Rocchi, M. et al. Nutritive sucking abnormalities and brain microstructural abnormalities in infants with established brain injury: a pilot study. J Perinatol 39, 1498–1508 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41372-019-0479-6

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