Microstructural development from 9 to 14 years: Evidence from the ABCD Study

Clare E Palmer; Diliana Pecheva; John R Iversen; Donald J Hagler Jr; Leo Sugrue; Pierre Nedelec; Chun Chieh Fan; Wesley K Thompson; Terry L Jernigan; Anders M Dale

doi:10.1016/j.dcn.2021.101044

Microstructural development from 9 to 14 years: Evidence from the ABCD Study

Dev Cogn Neurosci. 2022 Feb:53:101044. doi: 10.1016/j.dcn.2021.101044. Epub 2021 Dec 3.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Center for Human Development, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92161, USA. Electronic address: cepalmer@ucsd.edu.
² Center for Multimodal Imaging and Genetics, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, 9444 Medical Center Dr, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA; Department of Radiology, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
³ Institute for Neural Computation, University of California San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
⁴ Department of Radiology and Biomedical Imaging, University of California, San Francisco, 505 Parnassus Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94143, USA.
⁵ Center for Multimodal Imaging and Genetics, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, 9444 Medical Center Dr, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
⁶ Division of Biostatistics, Department of Family Medicine and Public Health, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA, USA.
⁷ Center for Human Development, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92161, USA; Department of Radiology, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA; Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92161, USA; Department of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
⁸ Center for Multimodal Imaging and Genetics, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, 9444 Medical Center Dr, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA; Department of Radiology, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA; Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92161, USA; Department of Neuroscience, University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.

Abstract

During late childhood behavioral changes, such as increased risk-taking and emotional reactivity, have been associated with the maturation of cortico-cortico and cortico-subcortical circuits. Understanding microstructural changes in both white matter and subcortical regions may aid our understanding of how individual differences in these behaviors emerge. Restriction spectrum imaging (RSI) is a framework for modelling diffusion-weighted imaging that decomposes the diffusion signal from a voxel into hindered, restricted, and free compartments. This yields greater specificity than conventional methods of characterizing diffusion. Using RSI, we quantified voxelwise restricted diffusion across the brain and measured age associations in a large sample (n = 8086) from the Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development (ABCD) study aged 9-14 years. Older participants showed a higher restricted signal fraction across the brain, with the largest associations in subcortical regions, particularly the basal ganglia and ventral diencephalon. Importantly, age associations varied with respect to the cytoarchitecture within white matter fiber tracts and subcortical structures, for example age associations differed across thalamic nuclei. This suggests that age-related changes may map onto specific cell populations or circuits and highlights the utility of voxelwise compared to ROI-wise analyses. Future analyses will aim to understand the relevance of this microstructural developmental for behavioral outcomes.

Keywords: Adolescence; Development; Diffusion; Microstructure; Neuroimaging; Subcortical.

Publication types

Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural

MeSH terms

Adolescent
Brain
Child
Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Humans
Individuality
White Matter*

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Grants and funding