Normative mammillary body volumes: From the neonatal period to young adult

The mammillary bodies may be small, but they have an important role in encoding complex memories. Mammillary body pathology often occurs following thiamine deficiency but there is increasing evidence that the mammillary bodies are also compromised in other neurological conditions and in younger ages groups. For example, the mammillary bodies are frequently affected in neonates with hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy. At present, there is no normative data for the mammillary bodies in younger groups making it difficult to identify abnormalities in neurological disorders. To address this, the present study set out to develop a normative dataset for neonates and for children to young adult. A further aim was to determine whether there were laterality or sex differences in mammillary body volumes. Mammillary body volumes were obtained from MRI scans from 506 participants across two datasets. Measures for neonates were acquired from the Developing Human Connectome Project database (156 male; 100 female); volumes for individuals aged 6–24 were acquired from the NICHE database (166 males; 84 females). Volume measurements were acquired using a semi-automated multi-atlas segmentation approach. Mammillary body volumes increased up to approximately 15 years-of-age. The left mammillary body was marginally, but significantly, larger than the right in the neonates with a similar pattern in older children/young adults. In neonates, the mammillary bodies in males were slightly bigger than females but no sex differences were present in older children/young adults. Given the increasing presentation of mammillary body pathology in neonates and children, these normative data will enable better assessment of the mammillary bodies in healthy and at-risk populations.