NIH’s National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering www.nibib.nih.gov provided funding for researchers at the University of Washington www.washington.edu to pioneer an approach to image functional activity in the brains of individual fetuses. The work addresses a common problem in using functional MRI when the subject moves during the scanning.
The research focused on the default mode network which are regions of the brain that are active when the brain is at rest. An example would be if someone is daydreaming or letting their mind wander and not concentrating on a specific task. As it turns out, fetal brains are in default mode much of the time, but it is not well known how this network develops.
The team was able to create a way to correct for motions by making a four-dimensional reconstruction of brain activity in moving subjects such as with fetuses and small children. By using multiple measurements, the researchers were able to reposition the images to create an estimate of what activities over a few minutes would look like.
The team first tested their method in adults by telling them to purposely move their head in the scanner. The researchers were then able to successfully quantify brain activity in moving subjects.
At this point, the researchers then scanned eight fetuses between 32 and 37 weeks of pregnancy as infants born prematurely have been shown to have active default mode networks. The resulting images were compiled to create a four dimensional view of each of the brains over a five minute time window.
According to Colin Studholme, PhD, Professor at the University of Washington and Senior author of the paper published online last year in the journal “Human Brain Mapping”, www.humanbrainmapping.org reports, “This research is leading to not just collecting data from individual babies but also understanding and building a four dimensional map of brain activity and how it should emerge in a normal baby.”