Altered brain white matter connectome in children and adolescents with prenatal alcohol exposure

• Published in: Brain Structure and Function Vol. 225; no. 3; pp. 1123 - 1133
• Main Authors: Long, Xiangyu, Little, Graham, Treit, Sarah, Beaulieu, Christian, Gong, Gaolang, Lebel, Catherine
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.04.2020; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adolescents; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; Brain - pathology; Cell Biology; Child; Child, Preschool; Children; Cognitive ability; Connectome; Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Ethanol - adverse effects; Female; Humans; Male; Neural networks; Neural Pathways - pathology; Neuroimaging; Neurology; Neurosciences; Original Article; Pregnancy; Prenatal experience; Prenatal exposure; Prenatal Exposure Delayed Effects - pathology; Substantia alba; Teenagers; White Matter - pathology; Graph theory; Prenatal alcohol exposure; Inter-/intra-network; Diffusion tensor imaging; Structural connectome; Global efficiency
• ISSN: 1863-2653; 1863-2661; 1863-2661; 0340-2061
• DOI: 10.1007/s00429-020-02064-z

Diffuson tensor imaging (DTI) has demonstrated widespread alterations of brain white matter structure in children with prenatal alcohol exposure (PAE), yet it remains unclear how these alterations affect the structural brain network as a whole. The present study aimed to examine changes in the DTI-based structural connectome in children and adolescents with PAE compared to unexposed controls. Participants were 121 children and adolescents with PAE (51 females) and 119 typically-developing controls (49 females) aged 5–18 years with DTI data collected at one of four research centers across Canada. Graph-theory based analysis was performed on the connectivity matrix constructed from whole-brain white matter fibers via deterministic tractography. The PAE group had significantly decreased whole-brain global efficiency, degree centrality, and participation coefficients, as well as increased shortest path length and betweenness centrality compared to unexposed controls. Individuals with PAE had decreased connectivity between the attention, somatomotor, and default mode networks compared to controls. This study demonstrates decreased structural white matter connectivity in children and adolescents with PAE at a whole-brain level, suggesting widespread alterations in how networks are connected with each other. This decreased connectivity may underlie cognitive and behavioural difficulties in children with PAE.