Correlation of NICU Anthropometry in Extremely Preterm Infants with Brain Development and Language Scores at Early School Age

Overview

Journal Sci Rep

Specialty Science

Date 2023 Sep 15

PMID 37714903

Authors

Ting Ting Fu

Maria E Barnes-Davis

Hisako Fujiwara

Alonzo T Folger

Stephanie L Merhar

Darren S Kadis

Brenda B Poindexter

Nehal A Parikh

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Growth in preterm infants in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) is associated with increased global and regional brain volumes at term, and increased postnatal linear growth is associated with higher language scores at age 2. It is unknown whether these relationships persist to school age or if an association between growth and cortical metrics exists. Using regression analyses, we investigated relationships between the growth of 42 children born extremely preterm (< 28 weeks gestation) from their NICU hospitalization, standardized neurodevelopmental/language assessments at 2 and 4-6 years, and multiple neuroimaging biomarkers obtained from T1-weighted images at 4-6 years. We found length at birth and 36 weeks post-menstrual age had positive associations with language scores at 2 years in multivariable linear regression. No growth metric correlated with 4-6 year assessments. Weight and head circumference at 36 weeks post-menstrual age positively correlated with total brain volume and negatively with global cortical thickness at 4-6 years of age. Head circumference relationships remained significant after adjusting for age, sex, and socioeconomic status. Right temporal cortical thickness was related to receptive language at 4-6 years in the multivariable model. Results suggest growth in the NICU may have lasting effects on brain development in extremely preterm children.

Citing Articles

Postnatal Growth Assessment of the Very-Low-Birth-Weight Preterm Infant.

McNelis K, Thoene M, Huff K, Fu T, Aljanini Z, Viswanathan S Children (Basel). 2025; 12(2).

PMID: 40003299 PMC: 11854838. DOI: 10.3390/children12020197.

Hormonal Imbalance as a Prognostic Factor of Physical Development of Children with Intellectual Disability.

Smirnova O, Ovcharenko E, Kasparov E Children (Basel). 2024; 11(8).

PMID: 39201848 PMC: 11352287. DOI: 10.3390/children11080913.

Risk Assessment of Cognitive Impairment at 2 Years of Age in Infants Born Extremely Preterm Using the INTERGROWTH-21st Growth Standards.

Salas A, Carlo W, Bann C, Bell E, Colaizy T, Younge N J Pediatr. 2024; 275:114239.

PMID: 39168179 PMC: 11560614. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2024.114239.

An exploratory study of clinical factors associated with IGF-1 and IGFBP-3 in preterm infants.

Paulsen M, Marka N, Nagel E, Gonzalez Villamizar J, Nathan B, Ramel S Pediatr Res. 2024; 96(2):402-408.

PMID: 38191823 PMC: 11228126. DOI: 10.1038/s41390-023-02970-y.

References

Belfort M, Gillman M, Buka S, Casey P, McCormick M . Preterm infant linear growth and adiposity gain: trade-offs for later weight status and intelligence quotient. J Pediatr. 2013; 163(6):1564-1569.e2. PMC: 3834090. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2013.06.032. View

Barnes-Davis M, Fujiwara H, Drury G, Merhar S, Parikh N, Kadis D . Functional Hyperconnectivity during a Stories Listening Task in Magnetoencephalography Is Associated with Language Gains for Children Born Extremely Preterm. Brain Sci. 2021; 11(10). PMC: 8534020. DOI: 10.3390/brainsci11101271. View

Bell K, Matthews L, Cherkerzian S, Prohl A, Warfield S, Inder T . Associations of body composition with regional brain volumes and white matter microstructure in very preterm infants. Arch Dis Child Fetal Neonatal Ed. 2022; 107(5):533-538. PMC: 9296693. DOI: 10.1136/archdischild-2021-321653. View

Nagy Z, Lagercrantz H, Hutton C . Effects of preterm birth on cortical thickness measured in adolescence. Cereb Cortex. 2010; 21(2):300-6. PMC: 3020580. DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhq095. View

Krasileva K, Sanders S, Bal V . Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test: Proxy for Verbal IQ in Genetic Studies of Autism Spectrum Disorder. J Autism Dev Disord. 2017; 47(4):1073-1085. DOI: 10.1007/s10803-017-3030-7. View

Ramel S, Gray H, Christiansen E, Boys C, Georgieff M, Demerath E . Greater Early Gains in Fat-Free Mass, but Not Fat Mass, Are Associated with Improved Neurodevelopment at 1 Year Corrected Age for Prematurity in Very Low Birth Weight Preterm Infants. J Pediatr. 2016; 173:108-15. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2016.03.003. View

Barnes-Davis M, Merhar S, Holland S, Parikh N, Kadis D . Extremely preterm children demonstrate hyperconnectivity during verb generation: A multimodal approach. Neuroimage Clin. 2021; 30:102589. PMC: 7903004. DOI: 10.1016/j.nicl.2021.102589. View

Skranes J, Lohaugen G, Martinussen M, Haberg A, Brubakk A, Dale A . Cortical surface area and IQ in very-low-birth-weight (VLBW) young adults. Cortex. 2013; 49(8):2264-71. DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2013.06.001. View

Rothman K . No adjustments are needed for multiple comparisons. Epidemiology. 1990; 1(1):43-6. View

10.

Murner-Lavanchy I, Rummel C, Steinlin M, Everts R . Cortical morphometry and cognition in very preterm and term-born children at early school age. Early Hum Dev. 2017; 116:53-63. DOI: 10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2017.11.003. View

11.

Coviello C, Keunen K, Kersbergen K, Groenendaal F, Leemans A, Peels B . Effects of early nutrition and growth on brain volumes, white matter microstructure, and neurodevelopmental outcome in preterm newborns. Pediatr Res. 2017; 83(1-1):102-110. DOI: 10.1038/pr.2017.227. View

12.

Ment L, Peterson B, Meltzer J, Vohr B, Allan W, Katz K . A functional magnetic resonance imaging study of the long-term influences of early indomethacin exposure on language processing in the brains of prematurely born children. Pediatrics. 2006; 118(3):961-70. PMC: 2364718. DOI: 10.1542/peds.2005-2870. View

13.

Barnes-Davis M, Williamson B, Merhar S, Holland S, Kadis D . Extremely preterm children exhibit altered cortical thickness in language areas. Sci Rep. 2020; 10(1):10824. PMC: 7331674. DOI: 10.1038/s41598-020-67662-7. View

14.

van Beek P, Claessens N, Makropoulos A, Groenendaal F, de Vries L, Counsell S . Increase in Brain Volumes after Implementation of a Nutrition Regimen in Infants Born Extremely Preterm. J Pediatr. 2020; 223:57-63.e5. DOI: 10.1016/j.jpeds.2020.04.063. View

15.

Rakic P . Evolution of the neocortex: a perspective from developmental biology. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2009; 10(10):724-35. PMC: 2913577. DOI: 10.1038/nrn2719. View

16.

Isaacs E, Gadian D, Sabatini S, Chong W, Quinn B, Fischl B . The effect of early human diet on caudate volumes and IQ. Pediatr Res. 2008; 63(3):308-14. DOI: 10.1203/PDR.0b013e318163a271. View

17.

Olsen I, Lawson M, Ferguson A, Cantrell R, Grabich S, Zemel B . BMI curves for preterm infants. Pediatrics. 2015; 135(3):e572-81. DOI: 10.1542/peds.2014-2777. View

18.

Ramel S, Haapala J, Super J, Boys C, Demerath E . Nutrition, Illness and Body Composition in Very Low Birth Weight Preterm Infants: Implications for Nutritional Management and Neurocognitive Outcomes. Nutrients. 2020; 12(1). PMC: 7019791. DOI: 10.3390/nu12010145. View

19.

Bjuland K, Lohaugen G, Martinussen M, Skranes J . Cortical thickness and cognition in very-low-birth-weight late teenagers. Early Hum Dev. 2013; 89(6):371-80. DOI: 10.1016/j.earlhumdev.2012.12.003. View

20.

Giedd J, Raznahan A, Alexander-Bloch A, Schmitt E, Gogtay N, Rapoport J . Child psychiatry branch of the National Institute of Mental Health longitudinal structural magnetic resonance imaging study of human brain development. Neuropsychopharmacology. 2014; 40(1):43-9. PMC: 4262916. DOI: 10.1038/npp.2014.236. View