Exploring the emergence of morphological asymmetries around the brain’s Sylvian fissure: a longitudinal study of shape variability in preterm infants

Authors:
Publisher website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Brain folding patterns vary within the human species, but some folding properties are common across individuals, including the Sylvian fissure’s inter-hemispheric asymmetry. Contrarily to the other brain folds (sulci), the Sylvian fissure develops through the process of opercularization, with the frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes growing over the insular lobe. Its asymmetry may be related to the leftward functional lateralization for language processing, but the time course of these asymmetries’ development is still poorly understood. In this study, we investigated refined shape features of the Sylvian fissure and their longitudinal development in 71 infants born extremely preterm (mean gestational age at birth: 26.5 weeks) and imaged once before and once at term-equivalent age (TEA). We additionally assessed asymmetrical sulcal patterns at TEA in the perisylvian and inferior frontal regions, neighbor to the Sylvian fissure. While reproducing renowned strong asymmetries in the Sylvian fissure, we captured an early encoding of its main asymmetrical shape features, and we observed global asymmetrical shape features representative of a more pronounced opercularization in the left hemisphere, contrasting with the previously reported right hemisphere advance in sulcation around birth. This added novel insights about the processes governing early-life brain folding mechanisms, potentially linked to the development of language-related capacities.
All Related Versions
Funding Information
  • ANR (ANR-20-CHIA-0027-01 FOLDDICO, ANR-14-CE30-0014-02 APEX, ANR-19-CE45-0022-01 IFOPASUBA)
  • FRM (DIC20161236445)
  • European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme (HBP SGA2 \& SGA3)
  • IdEx Université de Paris (ANR-18-IDEX-0001)
  • Medisite Foundation

This publication has 48 references indexed in Scilit: