Association between Quantitative MR Markers of Cortical Evolving Organization and Gene Expression during Human Prenatal Brain Development.

The relationship between structural changes of the cerebral cortex revealed by Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) and gene expression in the human fetal brain has not been explored. In this study, we aimed to test the hypothesis that relative regional thickness (a measure of cortical evolving organization) of fetal cortical compartments (cortical plate [CP] and subplate [SP]) is associated with expression levels of genes with known cortical phenotype. Mean regional SP/CP thickness ratios across age measured on in utero MRI of 25 healthy fetuses (20-33 gestational weeks [GWs]) were correlated with publicly available regional gene expression levels (23-24 GW fetuses).

Normative fetal brain growth by quantitative in vivo magnetic resonance imaging.

Objective: The objective of the study was to characterize total and regional volumetric brain growth in healthy fetuses during the second and third trimesters of pregnancy, using an automated method.

Study Design: We developed and validated an automated method to quantify global and regional in vivo brain volumes using fetal magnetic resonance imaging. We then computed the percentage of growth for each brain structure in a cohort of 64 healthy fetuses (25.