Sensorimotor network alterations in children and youth with prenatal alcohol exposure

Abstract

Children with prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE) often have impaired sensorimotor function. While altered brain structure has been noted in sensorimotor areas, the functional brain alterations remain unclear. This study aims to investigate sensorimotor brain networks in children and youth with PAE using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (rs-fMRI). A parcellation-based network analysis was performed to identify brain networks related to hand/lower limb and face/upper limb function in 59 children and youth with PAE and 50 typically developing controls. Participants with PAE and controls had similar organization of the hand and face areas within the primary sensorimotor cortex, but participants with PAE had altered functional connectivity (FC) between the sensorimotor regions and the rest of the brain. The sensorimotor regions in the PAE group showed less connectivity to certain hubs of the default mode network and more connectivity to areas of the salience network. Overall, our results show that despite similar patterns of organization in the sensorimotor network, subjects with PAE have increased FC between this network and other brain areas, perhaps suggesting overcompensation. These alterations in the sensorimotor network lay the foundation for future studies to evaluate interventions and treatments to improve motor function in children with PAE.

Structural and functional brain network alterations in prenatal alcohol exposed neonates

“…Similarly, functional MRI studies in older children and adolescents continue to demonstrate disruptions in sensorimotor network connectivity after PAE (e.g. Long et al 2018 ). Further, a study using structural MRI, found decreased subcortical gray matter volume in neonates following PAE ( Donald et al 2016b ), while another study found a smaller corpus callosum after heavy PAE ( Jacobson et al 2017 ) that has implications for network integration.…”

The brain's functional connectome in young children with prenatal alcohol exposure

“…This level of stability is similar to a previous study in older typically-developing children (Vanderwal et al., 2017), which found correlations of functional connectivity matrices between the first and the second half of the data were approximately 0.60 when watching video clips. The high intra-participant stability in the PAE group was unexpected because children with PAE often have behavioral challenges, atypical neurocognitive responses to visual (Green et al., 2013; Paolozza et al., 2014), auditory (Stephen et al., 2012), and emotional stimuli (Petrenko et al., 2017), as well as altered functional connectivity among brain regions (Donald et al., 2016; Fan et al., 2017; Little et al., 2018; Long et al., 2018). It may be that movie viewing, as opposed to behavioral tasks, moderates the intra-individual variability in children with PAE and leads to higher stability.…”

“…Previous resting-state fMRI studies in PAE instructed participants to close their eyes, or acquired data during natural sleep in infants, and found significant between-group differences in functional connectivity compared to unexposed controls (Donald et al., 2016; Little et al., 2018; Long et al., 2018; Wozniak et al., 2013; Wozniak, 2011). It is possible that the passive viewing status here, with its relatively high intra-individual stability, may be less taxing on the brain and thus may not show differences evident in more difficult cognitive tasks.…”

“…The lack of increasing inter-participant stability in the PAE group may reflect disordered functional network development that becomes more apparent with age as functional demand increases. Indeed, older children with PAE had altered functional brain network connectivity (Fan et al., 2017; Little et al., 2018; Long et al., 2018; Santhanam et al., 2011; Wozniak et al., 2011). The altered development of inter- and intra-individual stability may contribute to diverse cognitive impairments often observed in children with PAE (Kodituwakku, 2009).…”

“…Structural magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies have shown brain alterations underlying these difficulties in children with PAE, including decreased total brain volume (Donald et al., 2015; Guerri et al., 2009; Lebel et al., 2011; Moore et al., 2014; Nguyen et al., 2017), increased (Sowell et al., 2008b; Yang et al., 2012) and decreased (Robertson et al., 2016; Zhou et al., 2018; Zhou 2011) cortical thickness, and altered white matter microstructure (lower fractional anisotropy and/or higher mean diffusivity) (Fan et al., 2015; Lebel et al., 2008; Paolozza et al., 2017; Sowell et al., 2008a; Treit et al., 2013; Wozniak et al., 2009, 2006; Wozniak and Muetzel, 2011). Functional MRI studies show that PAE is associated with altered functional connectivity at rest in infants (Donald et al., 2016), children and youth (Fan et al., 2017; Little et al., 2018; Long et al., 2018; Wozniak et al., 2011), and adults (Santhanam et al., 2011), as well as both increased and decreased functional connectivity within brain networks during working memory tasks (Infante et al., 2017; Roussotte et al., 2012). However, no MRI studies have examined brain functional connectivity in young children with PAE (i.e., 2–6 years).…”