Global and regional white matter development in early childhood
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Abstract
White matter development continues throughout childhood and into early adulthood, but few studies have examined early childhood, and the specific trajectories and regional variation in this age range remain unclear. The aim of this study was to characterize developmental trajectories and sex differences of white matter in typically developing young children. Three hundred and ninety-six diffusion tensor imaging datasets from 120 children (57 male) aged 2-8 years were analyzed using tractography. Fractional anisotropy (FA) increased and mean diffusivity (MD) decreased in all white matter tracts by 5-15% over the 6-year period, likely reflecting increases in myelination and axonal packing. Males showed steeper slopes in a number of brain areas. Overall, early childhood is associated with substantial development of all white matter and appears to be an important period for the development of occipital and limbic connections, which showed the largest changes. This study provides a detailed characterization of age-related white matter changes in early childhood, offering baseline data that can be used to understand cognitive and behavioural development, as well as to identify deviations from normal development in children with various diseases, disorders, or brain injuries.
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Studies characterize typical nonlinear trajectories (piecewise, exponential, quadratic) of diffusion metrics for major tracts across large developmental ranges.
“Studies also characterize several typical nonlinear trajectories (piecewise, exponential and quadratic) of diffusion metrics for major tracts across large developmental ranges such as infancy to childhood (Pecheva et al., 2017; Reynolds et al., 2019; Stephens et al., 2020) or adolescence to adulthood (Chang et al., 2015; Lebel and Beaulieu, 2011).”
From Quantitative mapping of the brain’s structural connectivity using diffusion MRI tractography: A review (2022) · cites this paper as Reynolds et al., 2019
The Results (§3.1; page unavailable) report quadratic trajectories for FA and MD in several major tracts, supporting the nonlinear-trajectory claim. Reynolds et al. studied children aged 2–8 years and fitted linear and quadratic models; our copy does not support attributing piecewise or exponential models, or an infancy-to-childhood age span, to this study. (LLM, conf=0.84)
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Sorted by citations
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Zhang, F., Daducci, A., He, Y., Schiavi, S., Seguin, C., Smith, R. E., Yeh, C.-H., Zhao, T., & O’Donnell, L. J. (2022) · NeuroImage · doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2021.118870 · Cited by 302 · see citing works
- Authors
- Reynolds, J. E., Grohs, M. N., Dewey, D., & Lebel, C.
- Affiliations
- University of Calgary (CA)
- Corresponding author
- Lebel, Catherine
- Venue
- NeuroImage
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2019-08
- Volume
- 196
- Pages
- 49-58
- ISSN
- 1053-8119 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2952355381
- Cited by
- 124
- References
- 10
- Citations by year
- 2026: 10 · 2025: 18 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 17 · 2022: 25 · 2021: 21 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 7
- FWCI
- 10.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- NeuroImage (publishedVersion)
- bioRxiv (Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research (MOP-136797, IHD-134090)
- University of Calgary
- Alberta Children's Hospital Foundation
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Radiology, Nuclear Medicine and Imaging › Advanced Neuroimaging Techniques and Applications
- Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Functional Brain Connectivity Studies
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Keywords
- white matter development, early childhood, sex differences, fractional anisotropy, mean diffusivity, myelination, developmental trajectories, typically developing children, longitudinal brain development
- MeSH terms
- Brain, Child, Child Development, Child, Preschool, Female, Humans, Longitudinal Studies, Male, Sex Characteristics, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, White Matter
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