Prenatal neural origins of infant motor development: Associations between fetal brain and infant motor development

• DOI: 10.1017/s095457941800072x
• Publication Date: 2018-08-02T03:52:27Z
• Authors: Moriah E. Thomason; Jasmine Hect; Rebecca Waller; Janessa H. Manning; Ann M. Stacks; Marjorie Beeghly; Jordan L. Boeve; Kristyn Wong; Marion I. van den...; Edgar Hernandez-A...; Sonia S. Hassan; Roberto Romero
• Keywords: Male; Motor Cortex/embryology; Pregnancy Trimester, Third; Prefrontal Cortex; Psychomotor Disorders/embryology; Gyrus Cinguli; Prefrontal Cortex/embryology; 03 medical and health sciences; Neural Pathways/embryology; Sex Factors; Child Development; 0302 clinical medicine; Pregnancy; Reference Values; Nerve Net/embryology; Neural Pathways; Humans; Third; Brain Mapping; Temporal Lobe/embryology; Infant, Newborn; Motor Cortex; Brain; Infant; Second; Newborn; Sensorimotor Cortex/embryology; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Gyrus Cinguli/embryology; Pregnancy Trimester, Second; Female; Brain/embryology; Pregnancy Trimester; Sensorimotor Cortex; Nerve Net; Psychomotor Disorders

AbstractFunctional circuits of the human brain emerge and change dramatically over the second half of gestation. It is possible that variation in neural functional system connectivity in utero predicts individual differences in infant behavioral development, but this possibility has yet to be examined. The current study examines the association between fetal sensorimotor brain system functional connectivity and infant postnatal motor ability. Resting-state functional connectivity data was obtained in 96 healthy human fetuses during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy. Infant motor ability was measured 7 months after birth using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Increased connectivity between the emerging motor network and regions of the prefrontal cortex, temporal lobes, posterior cingulate, and supplementary motor regions was observed in infants that showed more mature motor functions. In addition, females demonstrated stronger fetal-brain to infant-behavior associations. These observations extend prior longitudinal research back into prenatal brain development and raise exciting new ideas about the advent of risk and the ontogeny of early sex differences.