Workshop on the characterization of early brain development using MRI

The MeCA team organizes a workshop on the characterization of early brain development using MRI on August 29th in H.Gastaud meeting room.

We will have the chance to welcome great speakers: Moriah E. Thomason, Iris Menu and Arnaud Cachia.

See the detailed program below.

No registration required, just come, attend and share discussions and ideas!

9-10 Moriah E. Thomason https://med.nyu.edu/faculty/moriah-e-thomason

Barakett Associate Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry

Associate Professor, Department of Population Health

Characterizing early brain development with MRI

While we possess rather detailed understanding of select micro- and macroscopic processes of normal human brain development, we know far less about how brain changes relate to behavioral changes over the course of life from the prenatal period to early adulthood. This gap is particularly pronounced in the earliest stages of life, when brain plasticity is high and susceptibility to environmental influence is greatest. The primary objective of our research is to characterize fundamental properties of human brain macroscale neural system development, and examine how early experiences, beginning in utero, influence life-long learning and neurological health. In this talk, I will present research characterizing macroscale neural system development across the perinatal period, with a focus on birth as a transformative neurobiological event. I will also share new findings on how the brain undergoes structural and functional changes during pregnancy that may support the transition to parenthood. Together, these findings highlight the dynamic interplay between neurodevelopment and life transitions, and suggest new directions for understanding how early brain changes shape long-term cognitive and emotional outcomes.

10-11 Iris Menu https://sites.google.com/view/irismenu/home

Assistant Professor at Université Paris Cité in the Laboratory for the Psychology of Child Development and Education (LaPsyDE, CNRS UMR 8240).

Prenatal inflammation and fetal brain connectivity

Prenatal inflammation has been linked to increased risk of neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders in offspring. While animal models have demonstrated that maternal inflammation can alter fetal brain development, no human studies have directly examined the relationship between placental inflammation and fetal brain connectivity. Our study investigates the associations between chronic placental inflammation (CPI) and fetal resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC). Pregnant mothers (N = 105; 85.7% African American/Black, 1.0% Asian American, 4.8% Bi-racial, 4.8% White, 1.0% Other, 2.9% Missing) were recruited during their second and third trimesters. Resting-state functional MRI data was collected in fetuses between 24.14 and 37.86 weeks of gestation and, for each case, after delivery, expert pathologists evaluated presence of placental inflammatory lesions in corresponding placental tissue samples. Using enrichment analysis, we identified significant differences in RSFC patterns between CPI-exposed (N = 44) and non-exposed fetuses (N = 61) across 10 network pairs, particularly involving prefrontal, cerebellar, visual, and motor regions. These alterations suggest that prenatal inflammation may disrupt the development of neural circuits associated with higher-order cognition and neurodevelopmental disorders. Our findings provide the first evidence in humans of a direct link between chronic placental inflammation and differences in fetal brain connectivity, offering new insights into potential mechanisms of fetal programming and early neurodevelopmental vulnerabilities. 

—-11-11:30 coffee break

11:30-12:30 Arnaud Cachia

Professor at Université Paris Cité and lab deputy director of the Laboratory for the Psychology of Child Development and Education (LaPsyDE, CNRS UMR 8240).

The Roots of Cognition: Uncovering Neurodevelopmental Pathways

Understanding the neurodevelopmental foundations of cognition is essential to elucidate how the human brain supports learning, adaptation, and lifelong cognitive functioning. Our research explores both typical and atypical trajectories of brain development, emphasizing the early origins of cognitive abilities. We examine how fetal brain organization and maturation set the stage for later cognitive outcomes, and how neuroplasticity shapes learning processes throughout development. Furthermore, we investigate how environmental factors—particularly socioeconomic status (SES)—interact with genetic predispositions to influence brain structure and function. By integrating neuroimaging, genetic, and behavioral approaches, our work aims to identify the key biological and contextual mechanisms that contribute to cognitive variability and vulnerability. 

12:30-13 Guillaume Auzias https://meca-brain.org/people/

A nice guy from the MeCA team at Institute for Neurosciences of La Timone

Burst of gyrification in the human brain after birth

Gyrification, the intricate folding of the brain’s cortex, begins mid-gestation and surges dramatically throughout the perinatal period. Yet, a critical factor has been largely overlooked in neurodevelopmental research: the profound impact of birth on brain structure. Leveraging the largest known perinatal MRI dataset—819 sessions spanning 21 to 45 postconceptional weeks— we introduce a new unified MRI processing pipeline specifically designed to compensate for uncontrolled variations in cortical measures induced by different acquisition protocols between fetuses and postnatal participants. Through a regression discontinuity statistical approach, we reveal a birth-related discontinuity in the trajectory of gyrification—an effect absent in tissue volume trajectories. This burst in gyrification amounts to half the entire gyrification expansion occurring during the fetal period. This new finding warrants consideration in future research on early brain morphology in both typical and atypical neurodevelopmental trajectories.

13-13:30 Olivier Coulon https://meca-brain.org/people/

A nice guy from the MeCA team at Institute for Neurosciences of La Timone

BaboFet: A High-Temporal Resolution Longitudinal Brain Fetal Database

Longitudinal assessment is instrumental for characterizing the dynamics of brain development.
However, most fetal brain MRI databases provide little to no longitudinal data. Consequently, prenatal developmental studies must deal with two intertwined phenomena: individual development and the emergence of inter-subject variability. One goal of the BaboFet project is to address this issue by providing a database that contains longitudinal data with high temporal resolution. Since such a project cannot be performed on humans, we scanned seven pregnant female baboons and plan to scan three more. For each female, the fetus’s brain was scanned once a week for ten weeks during a period equivalent to the second half of pregnancy in humans. I will present the data that have been acquired and the efforts made to reconstruct and pre-process these data.