Advanced Diffusion MRI in Developing Brain

Abstract

Brain development takes a long time, starting in the third trimester of pregnancy and continuing into the first decade of life. Understanding how the brain develops in early life is important for identifying abnormal development that may later be related to neurological and psychiatric disorders. Diffusion MRI (dMRI) is a powerful imaging technique that shows how water molecules move in biological tissues, providing important information about brain tissue structure and organization. Although dMRI has shown significant advances in pediatric research over the last 30 years, the study of early brain development is still relatively new but has great scientific and clinical potential. This chapter assesses how advanced dMRI methods can be used to measure rapid and dynamic changes in the microstructural foundations of the brain during early life.