T2 relaxometry in the extremely-preterm brain at adolescence

Survival following very preterm birth is associated with cognitive and behavioral sequelae, which may have identifiable neural correlates. Many survivors of modern neonatal care in the 1990s are now young adults and the evolution of MRI findings into adult life has rarely been evaluated. We have investigated a cohort of 19-year-old adolescents without severe impairments born between 22 and 26 weeks of gestation in 1995 (extremely preterm: EP). Using T2 data derived from magnetic resonance imaging we investigate differences between the brains of 46 EP participants (n = 46) and the brains of a group of term-born controls (n = 20). Despite EP adolescents having significantly reduced gray and white matter volumes, the composition of these tissues, assessed by both single and multi-component relaxometry, appears to be unrelated to either preterm status or gender. This may represent either insensitivity of the imaging technique or reflect that there are only subtle differences between EP subjects and their term-born peers.