Altered structural brain network topology in infants with intrauterine growth restriction

Intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) due to placental insufficiency is associated with a wide range of short- and long-term neurodevelopmental disorders. Prediction of neurodevelopmental outcomes in IUGR is among the clinical challenges of modern fetal medicine and pediatrics. In this paper we analyze brain networks obtained from diffusion MRI of a prospective cohort of one year old infants (32 controls and 24 IUGR) and demonstrate the existence of quantifiable brain reorganization of white matter circuitry in IUGR group by means of graph theory features of brain networks. We also introduce novel graph theory measure of segregation of regional networks and apply it to our sample, finding it a useful measure to find differences in case-control studies. These findings show the potential of diffusion MRI based connectomics and graph theory based network characteristics for estimating differences in the architecture of neural circuitry.