Quantitative in vivo MRI measurement of cortical development in the fetus.

Normal brain development is associated with expansion and folding of the cerebral cortex following a highly orchestrated sequence of gyral-sulcal formation. Although several studies have described the evolution of cerebral cortical development ex vivo or ex utero, to date, very few studies have characterized and quantified the gyrification process for the in vivo fetal brain. Recent advances in fetal magnetic resonance imaging and post-processing computational methods are providing new insights into fetal brain maturation in vivo.