Cábez, M.B., Vaher, K., York, E.N., Galdi, P., Sullivan, G., Stoye, D.Q., Hall, J., Corrigan,
A.M., Quigley, A.J., Waldman, A.D., Bastin, M.E., Thrippleton, M.J., & Boardman, J.P. (2023).
Characterisation of the neonatal brain using myelin-sensitive magnetisation transfer imaging.
Imaging Neuroscience, Advance Publication. https://doi.org/10.1162/imag_a_00017
Characterisation of the neonatal brain using myelin-sensitive
magnetisation transfer imaging
Manuel Blesa Cábeza,1,*, Kadi Vahera,*, Elizabeth N. Yorkb,c,d, Paola Galdia, Gemma Sullivana,
David Q. Stoyea, Jill Halla, Amy E. Corrigane, Alan J. Quigleye, Adam D. Waldmanb,d, Mark E.
Bastinb,d, Michael J. Thrippletonb,d, James P. Boardmana,b
Author affiliations
aMRC Centre for Reproductive Health, Institute for Regeneration and Repair, Université de
Édimbourg, Edinburgh BioQuarter, EH16 4UU
bCentre for Clinical Brain Sciences, University of Edinburgh, Édimbourg, EH16 4SB, ROYAUME-UNI
cAnne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic, Édimbourg, EH16 4SB, ROYAUME-UNI
dEdinburgh Imaging, University of Edinburgh, Édimbourg, ROYAUME-UNI
eRoyal Hospital for Children & Young People, Édimbourg, EH16 4TJ, ROYAUME-UNI
1Corresponding author: Manuel Blesa Cábez, Chancellor’s Building, 49 Little France
Crescent, Edinburgh BioQuarter, Edinburgh EH16 4SB, ROYAUME-UNI. E-mail: manuel.blesa@ed.ac.uk
*These authors contributed equally to the work.
© 2023 Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC PAR 4.0) Licence. 1
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Abstrait
integrity
in early
A cardinal feature of the encephalopathy of prematurity is dysmaturation of developing
white matter and subsequent hypomyelination. Magnetisation transfer imaging (MTI)
offers surrogate markers for myelination including magnetisation transfer ratio (MTR) et
magnetisation transfer saturation (MTsat). Using data from 105 neonates, we characterise
MTR and MTsat in the developing brain and investigate how these markers are affected by
gestational age at scan and preterm birth. We explore correlations of the two measures
with fractional anisotropy (FA), radial diffusivity (RD) and T1w/T2w ratio which are
commonly used markers of white matter
vie. We used two
complementary analysis methods: voxel-wise analysis across the white matter skeleton,
and tract-of-interest analysis across 16 major white matter tracts. We found that MTR and
MTsat positively correlate with gestational age at scan. Preterm infants at term-equivalent
age had lower values of MTsat in the genu and splenium of the corpus callosum, while MTR
was higher in central white matter regions, the corticospinal tract and the uncinate
fasciculus. Correlations of MTI metrics with other MRI parameters revealed that there were
moderate positive correlations between T1w/T2w and MTsat and MTR at voxel-level, mais
at tract-level FA had stronger positive correlations with these metrics. RD had the strongest
correlations with MTI metrics, particularly with MTsat in major white matter tracts. Le
observed changes in MTI metrics are consistent with an increase in myelin density during
early postnatal life, and lower myelination and cellular/axonal density in preterm infants at
term-equivalent age compared to term controls. En outre, correlations between MTI-
derived features and conventional measures from dMRI provide new understanding about
the contribution of myelination to non-specific imaging metrics that are often used to
characterise early brain development.
Mots clés: magnetisation transfer, preterm birth, neonate, white matter, myelin
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2
Abbreviations
AF
ATR
CC genu
CC splenium
CCG
CST
dHCP
dMRI
FA
FDR
FWER
GA
GM
IFOF
ILF
MPF
IRM
MTI
MTR
MTsat
R1app
RD
ROI
SNR
TE
TEA
TFCE
TR
UNC
WM
arcuate fasciculus
anterior thalamic radiation
corpus callosum genu/forceps minor
corpus callosum splenium/forceps major
cingulum cingulate gyrus
corticospinal tract
developing human connectome project
diffusion magnetic resonance imaging
fractional anisotropy
false discovery rate
family-wise error correction
gestational age
grey matter
inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus
inferior longitudinal fasciculus
macromolecular proton fraction
magnetic resonance imaging
magnetisation transfer imaging
magnetisation transfer ratio
magnetisation transfer saturation
approximation of R1
radial diffusivity
region of interest
signal-to-noise ratio
echo time
term-equivalent age
threshold-free cluster enhancement
repetition time
uncinate fasciculus
white matter
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3
1
Introduction
The integrity of brain development during pregnancy and the new born period is critical
for life-long cognitive function and brain health. During the second and third trimesters of
pregnancy, there is a phase of rapid brain maturation characterised by volumetric growth,
increases in cortical complexity, white matter (WM) organisation and myelination
(Counsell et al., 2019; Dubois et al., 2021). Early exposure to extrauterine life due to
preterm birth, defined as birth < 37 weeks of gestation, affects around 11% of births and is
closely associated with neurodevelopmental, cognitive and psychiatric impairment
(Johnson and Marlow, 2017; Nosarti et al., 2012; Wolke et al., 2019), and alterations to
brain development that are apparent using MRI (Boardman and Counsell, 2019; Counsell et
al., 2019; Pecheva et al., 2018).
Structural MRI (T1- and T2-weighted) and diffusion MRI (dMRI) have revealed a
phenotype of preterm birth that includes changes in global and regional tissue volumes and
cortical complexity, and altered microstructural integrity of the WM (Counsell et al., 2019;
Pecheva et al., 2018). These imaging features capture the encephalopathy of prematurity
(EoP), which is thought to underlie long term impairments (Volpe, 2009). Diffusion metrics
are influenced by microstructural properties of the underlying tissue including axonal
density and diameter, and water content; although myelination may alter/contribute to
water diffusivity, myelin does not directly contribute to the diffusion signal due to short T2
(Mancini et al., 2020; van der Weijden et al., 2020).
Pre-oligodendrocytes are particularly vulnerable to hypoxia-ischaemia and inflammation
associated with preterm birth (Back and Volpe, 2018; Volpe et al., 2011). Although this cell
population is mostly replenished following primary injury, subsequent differentiation into
myelin-producing oligodendrocytes can fail, leading to hypomyelination (Billiards et al.,
2008; Volpe, 2019). Therefore, imaging tools that more specifically model myelination in
early life could enhance biology-informed assessment of EoP.
Several MRI techniques are sensitive to myelin content (Lazari and Lipp, 2021; Mancini et
al., 2020; Piredda et al., 2021). In the developing brain, the most commonly applied myelin-
sensitive imaging techniques are those based on relaxometry, such as T1 (or its inverse,
R1) or T2 (or its inverse, R2) mapping (e.g. Counsell et al., 2003; Grotheer et al., 2022;
Kulikova et al., 2015; Leppert et al., 2009; Maitre et al., 2014; Schneider et al., 2016),
quantification of myelin water fraction (e.g. Dean et al., 2014; Deoni et al., 2011; Melbourne
et al., 2013), and calculation of T1w/T2w ratio (e.g. Filimonova et al., 2023; Grotheer et al.,
2023; Lee et al., 2015; Soun et al., 2017). However, T1 and T2 relaxation are partly
determined by iron concentration (Birkl et al., 2019; Stüber et al., 2014), and T1w/T2w
ratio correlations with other myelin-sensitive MRI parameters and histological myelin
measurements are low (Arshad et al., 2017; Sandrone et al., 2023; Uddin et al., 2018).
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4
Magnetisation transfer imaging (MTI) is a family of MRI techniques sensitive to subtle
pathological changes in tissue microstructure which cannot typically be quantified with
conventional MRI (Sled, 2018). MTI is based on the exchange of magnetisation between
immobile protons associated with macromolecules, and mobile protons in free water. MTI
is sensitive to myelin-associated macromolecules such as cholesterol, myelin basic protein,
sphingomyelin and galactocerebrosides, and thus it provides a surrogate marker of myelin
integrity (Mancini et al., 2020). To date, MTI has mainly been used to study demyelinating
diseases such as multiple sclerosis (Sled, 2018; York et al., 2022b).
Magnetisation transfer ratio (MTR), calculated as the percentage change in signal with and
without off-resonance radiofrequency saturation, is the most widely used MTI metric. MTR
is, however, susceptible to transmit (B1+) field inhomogeneities (Helms et al., 2010a) and
T1 relaxation effects, and varies widely depending upon specific acquisition parameters
(Samson et al., 2006; York et al., 2022c). Biological interpretation of MTR is therefore
challenging, which presents a barrier to clinical translation. The addition of a T1w
sequence allows computation of magnetisation transfer saturation (MTsat) which
inherently corrects for B1+ inhomogeneities and T1 relaxation to a substantial degree
(Helms et al., 2008b; Samson et al., 2006). MTsat hence addresses some limitations of MTR
within clinically feasible acquisition times and the resulting parametric maps have visibly
better tissue contrast compared with MTR (Helms et al., 2008b; Samson et al., 2006; York
et al., 2022b). Higher values of MTR and MTsat are associated with greater myelin density.
In neonates, MTR has been used to characterise brain development during the preterm
period from birth up to term-equivalent age (TEA): in general, MTR values in WM increase
with gestational age (GA) at scan (Nossin-Manor et al., 2015, 2013, 2012; Zheng et al.,
2016). In addition, at the age of 4 years, children born very preterm have lower MTR values
across the WM compared to term-born peers, and WM MTR positively correlates with
language and visuo-motor skills (Vandewouw et al., 2019). Furthermore, in infancy, an
MTI-derived macromolecular proton
for
neurocognitive outcomes (Corrigan et al., 2022; Zhao et al., 2022). Yet, the use of MTI in the
neonatal brain has been scarce, and, to the best of our knowledge, MTsat has not been used
to study myelination in human neonates. Furthermore, no studies have explored the effect
of preterm birth on MTI metrics in comparison to term controls at TEA.
(MPF) has predictive value
fraction
In this work, we aimed to obtain a description of brain myelination processes by applying
MTI in the neonatal period. We had three objectives: 1) to characterise the associations of
MTsat and MTR in neonatal WM with GA at MRI scan; 2) to test the hypothesis that myelin-
sensitive features would differ between preterm infants at TEA and term controls; and 3)
to assess the relationship between MTI metrics and the T1w/T2w ratio, a commonly used
myelin proxy, fractional anisotropy (FA), which is most robustly associated with EoP but is
not specific to myelination, and radial diffusivity (RD), a diffusion biomarker that has been
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5
related to myelin pathologies (Lazari and Lipp, 2021; Mancini et al., 2020; Song et al.,
2002).
2 Material and methods
2.1 Participants and data acquisition
Participants were very preterm infants (GA at birth < 32 completed weeks) and term-born
controls recruited as part of a longitudinal study designed to investigate the effects of
preterm birth on brain structure and long-term outcome (Boardman et al., 2020). The
cohort exclusion criteria were major congenital malformations, chromosomal
abnormalities, congenital infection, overt parenchymal lesions (cystic periventricular
leukomalacia, haemorrhagic parenchymal infarction) or post-haemorrhagic ventricular
dilatation. The study was conducted according to the principles of the Declaration of
Helsinki, and ethical approval was obtained from the UK National Research Ethics Service.
Parents provided written informed consent. 105 neonates (83 preterm and 22 term) who
underwent MTI at TEA at the Edinburgh Imaging Facility (Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh,
University of Edinburgh, UK) were included in the current study.
A Siemens MAGNETOM Prisma 3 T clinical MRI system (Siemens Healthcare Erlangen,
Germany) and 16-channel phased-array paediatric head coil were used to acquire a three-
dimensional (3D) T1w magnetisation prepared rapid gradient echo (MPRAGE) structural
image (voxel size = 1 mm isotropic, echo time [TE] = 4.69 ms and repetition time [TR] =
1970 ms); 3D T2-weighted SPACE images (T2w) (voxel size = 1mm isotropic, TE = 409 ms
and TR = 3200 ms) and axial dMRI data. dMRI volumes were acquired in two separate
acquisitions to reduce the time needed to re-acquire any data lost to motion artifacts: the
first acquisition consisted of 8 baseline volumes (b = 0 s/mm2 [b0]) and 64 volumes with b
= 750 s/mm2; the second consisted of 8 b0, 3 volumes with b = 200 s/mm2, 6 volumes with
b = 500 s/mm2 and 64 volumes with b = 2500 s/mm2. An optimal angular coverage for the
sampling scheme was applied (Caruyer et al., 2013). In addition, an acquisition of 3 b0
volumes with an inverse phase encoding direction was performed. All dMRI volumes were
acquired using single-shot spin-echo echo planar imaging (EPI) with 2-fold simultaneous
multi-slice and 2-fold in-plane parallel imaging acceleration and 2 mm isotropic voxels; all
three diffusion acquisitions had the same parameters (TR/TE 3400/78.0 ms). MTI
images (TE =
consisted of three sagittal 3D multi-echo spoiled gradient echo
1.54/4.55/8.56 ms, 2 mm isotropic acquired resolution): magnetisation transfer (TR = 75
ms, flip angle = 5°, gaussian MT pulse (offset 1200 Hz, duration 9.984 ms, flip angle = 500°)
[MTon]), proton density-weighted (TR = 75 ms, flip angle = 5° [MToff]) and T1w (TR = 15 ms,
flip angle = 14° [MTT1w]) acquisitions. All acquisitions affected by motion artifacts were re-
acquired multiple times as required; dMRI acquisitions were repeated if signal loss was
seen in 3 or more volumes. The full acquisition protocol can be found in the cohort
manuscript (Boardman et al., 2020).
6
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Infants were fed and wrapped and allowed to sleep naturally in the scanner. Pulse
oximetry, electrocardiography and temperature were monitored. Flexible earplugs and
neonatal earmuffs (MiniMuffs, Natus) were used for acoustic protection. All scans were
supervised by a doctor or nurse trained in neonatal resuscitation.
2.2 Data preprocessing
The image analysis was performed with MRtrix3 (Tournier et al., 2019), FSL 5.0.11 (Smith
et al., 2004), ANTs (Avants et al., 2008), the developing Human Connectome Project (dHCP)
pipeline (Makropoulos et al., 2018) and MATLAB R2022a.
dMRI processing was performed as follows: for each subject, the two dMRI acquisitions
were first concatenated and then denoised using a Marchenko-Pastur-PCA-based algorithm
(Veraart et al., 2016); eddy current, head movement and EPI geometric distortions were
corrected using outlier replacement and slice-to-volume registration (Andersson et al.,
2017, 2016, 2003; Andersson and Sotiropoulos, 2016); bias field inhomogeneity correction
was performed by calculating the bias field of the mean b0 volume and applying the
correction to all the volumes (Tustison et al., 2010). The DTI model was fitted in
each voxel using the weighted least-squares method dtifit as implemented in FSL using only
the b = 750 s/mm2 shell.
Structural MRI (T1w and T2w) images were processed using the dHCP minimal processing
pipeline to obtain the bias field corrected and coregistered T2w and T1w, brain masks,
tissue segmentation and the different tissue probability maps (Makropoulos et al., 2018,
2014). Then T1w/T2w ratio maps were obtained using the bias field corrected images. The
T1w/T2w maps were edited to remove voxels with intensities higher than the mean + 5
standard deviations. Note that a calibration step was not included, as the full dataset was
scanned with the same parameters in the same scanner, minimising differences in intensity
scale (Ganzetti et al., 2014).
2.3 Magnetisation transfer imaging processing
MTI data were processed as previously described (York et al., 2022b, 2020). The three
echoes were summed together to increase the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) (Helms and
Hagberg, 2009) for each MT image (MToff, MTon and MTT1w). MTon and MTT1w images were
coregistered to the MToff image using flirt (Jenkinson et al., 2002; Jenkinson and Smith,
2001). From (Helms et al., 2010b, 2008a) we can define the amplitude of the spoiled
gradient echo at the echo time (App) as:
where S, TR and α represent the signal intensity, the repetition time (in seconds), and the
flip angle (in radians), respectively. The subscript off stands for the proton density-
weighted acquisition and the subscript T1w for T1-weighted image.
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The R1app is expressed as:
By combining R1app and Aapp, we can obtain the MTsat:
where Son represents the intensity signal of the magnetization transfer weighted image.
Finally, the MTR can be obtained as follows:
*
2.4 Registration to a common space
MTsat and MTR maps were registered to the structural T1w (MPRAGE) images processed
with the dHCP pipeline using ANTs symmetric normalisation (SyN) (Avants et al., 2008).
The tissue probability maps for the grey matter (GM) and WM were obtained from the
dHCP pipeline (Makropoulos et al., 2018). Nonlinear diffeomorphic multimodal registration
was then performed between age-matched T2w and GM/WM tissue probability maps from
the dHCP extended volumetric atlas (Fitzgibbon et al., 2020; Schuh et al., 2018) to the
subjects T2w and GM/WM tissue probability using SyN (Avants et al., 2008). This was
combined with the corresponding template-to-template transformation to yield a
structural-to-template (40 weeks GA) transformation, which was finally combined with the
MTsat-to-structural transformation to obtain the final MTsat-to-template alignment. By
combining all the transformations, image registration was performed with only one
interpolation step.
2.5 Tract-based spatial statistics
The mean b0 EPI volume of each subject was co-registered to their structural T2w volume
using boundary-based registration (Greve and Fischl, 2009). This was combined with the
structural-to-template transformation to create the diffusion-to-template transformation
and propagate the FA maps to the template space.
The FA maps were averaged and used to create the skeleton mask. MTsat and MTR
parametric maps were propagated to template space using the MTsat-to-template
transformation and projected onto the skeleton (Smith et al., 2006).
2.6 White matter tracts of interest
Sixteen WM tracts were generated in each subject’s diffusion space as previously described
(Vaher et al., 2022). Briefly, the tract masks were propagated from the ENA50 atlas (Blesa
et al., 2020). These masks were used as a set of regions of interest (ROI) for seeding the
tractography, creating the tracts in native diffusion space. Then, the tracts were binarised
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only including voxels containing at least 10% of the tracts and propagated to MTsat space
by combining the MTsat-to-structural and diffusion-to-structural transformations to
calculate the mean values in each tract.
2.7 Statistical analysis
Tract-based statistical analyses were conducted in R (version 4.0.5) (R Core Team, 2022).
We performed multivariate multiple linear regression analyses for all WM tracts, with the
tract-average metric as the outcome and preterm status and GA at scan as the predictor
variables. Preterm status is a categorical variable (preterm versus term), and GA at scan is
continuous variable that describes infant’s age. Adjustment for GA at scan is a standard
convention in quantitative neonatal MRI studies because MRI features are dynamic during
early life so differences in age at image acquisition is a potential source of confounding in
groupwise analyses. The outcome variables as well as GA at scan were scaled (z-
transformed) before fitting the models, thus, the regression coefficients reported are in the
units of standard deviations. P-values were adjusted for the false discovery rate (FDR)
using the Benjamini-Hochberg procedure (Benjamini and Hochberg, 1995) across all MTI
metrics separately for the effects of preterm birth and GA at scan; and independently for
the comparative FA, RD and T1w/T2w ratio tract-based analyses. The WM tract results
were visualised using ParaView (ParaView Developers, 2020), with standardised betas
represented as the effect size.
Voxel-wise statistical analysis was performed using a general linear univariate model with
PALM (Winkler et al., 2014). Two different contrasts were tested: correlation with GA at
scan adjusting for preterm status, and term vs preterm comparison adjusting for GA at
scan. Family-wise error correction (FWER), across modalities for MTI metrics (MTsat and
MTR) and separately for the complementary FA, RD and T1w/T2w analyses (Winkler et al.,
2016), and threshold-free cluster enhancement (TFCE) were applied with a significance
level of p<0.05 (Smith and Nichols, 2009).
The distributions of MTI metrics, FA, RD and T1w/T2w ratio were compared using two-
dimensional histograms of co-registered indexed voxels (RNifti and ggplot2::geom bin2d
packages in R) (York et al., 2022a) and voxel-wise correlation analyses between the metrics
were performed with repeated measures correlation as implemented in the R package
rmcorr (Bakdash and Marusich, 2017); this was performed in the WM tissue segmentation
obtained from the dHCP pipeline (Makropoulos et al., 2018). Tract-wise correlation
coefficients were calculated using Pearson’s r. The average Pearson’s correlation coefficient
across all tracts was calculated by first transforming the Pearson’s r values to Fisher’s Z,
taking the average, and then back-transforming the value to Pearson’s correlation
coefficient (Corey et al., 1998).
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3 Results
3.1 Sample characteristics
The study group consisted of 105 neonates: 83 participants were preterm and 22 were
term-born controls. Participant characteristics are provided in Table 1. Among the preterm
infants, 15 (18.1%) had bronchopulmonary dysplasia (defined as need for supplementary
oxygen ≥ 36 weeks GA), 3 (3.6%) developed necrotising enterocolitis requiring medical or
surgical treatment, 15 (18.1%) had one or more episodes of postnatal sepsis (defined as
detection of a bacterial pathogen from blood culture, or physician decision to treat with
antibiotics for ≥ 5 days in the context of growth of coagulase negative Staphylococcus from
blood or a negative culture but raised inflammatory markers in blood), and 2 (2.4%)
required treatment for retinopathy of prematurity.
Table 1: Neonatal participant characteristics.
term (n=22)
preterm (n=83)
p-value*
GA at birth (weeks)
39.57 (36.42 - 41.56)
29.48 (24.14 - 32.84)
Birth weight (grams)
3340 (2410 - 4295)
1334 (594 - 2380)
n/a
n/a
Birth weight z-score
0.167 (-2.295 - 1.970)
0.060 (-3.132 - 2.141)
0.632
GA at scan (weeks)
41.93 (40.00 - 46.14)
40.77 (37.84 - 45.84)
<0.001
M:F ratio
13:9
49:34
1
*The last column reports the p-values of the group differences computed with Student’s t-test for continuous
variables and Fisher’s exact test for categorical variables. GA = gestational age; M/F = male/female.
3.2 Magnetisation transfer imaging metrics in association with gestational age at scan and
preterm birth
The average MTsat and MTR maps for the term and preterm infants are shown in Figure 1A
(see Supplementary Figure 1 for examples of individual participant maps). From visual
inspection of the averaged maps, MTsat and MTR show similar values across the two
groups, although preterm infants at TEA have lower MTsat values mostly in the frontal
regions and higher MTR values in the central regions. Tract-averaged values for MTsat and
MTR for term and preterm groups are provided in Supplementary Table 1 and visualised in
Figure 1B. The highest MTsat values are observed in the corticospinal tract, whilst MTR is
highest in the anterior thalamic radiation and cingulum cingulate, followed by the
corticospinal tract. The lowest values for MTsat and MTR are observed in the inferior
longitudinal fasciculus.
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Figure 1: (A) Neonatal MTsat and MTR maps averaged across term and preterm subjects in the study. (B) Tract-
averaged MTI metrics in the 16 white matter tracts; tracts are ordered by the values of MTsat. Asterisks (*)
indicate tracts with statistically significantly different values between term and preterm infants. MTR =
magnetisation transfer ratio, MTsat = magnetisation transfer saturation, CC genu = corpus callosum
genu/forceps minor, CC splenium = corpus callosum splenium/forceps major, CST = corticospinal tract, IFOF =
inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus, ILF = inferior longitudinal fasciculus, AF = arcuate fasciculus, UNC = uncinate
fasciculus, CCG = cingulum cingulate gyrus, ATR = anterior thalamic radiation.
We used two complementary approaches to study the effect of GA at scan and preterm
birth on the MTI metrics: voxel-wise in the WM skeleton, and ROI-based using mean values
in 16 major WM tracts (Vaher et al., 2022).
MTsat and MTR are positively correlated with GA at scan within the neonatal period
between 37-46 weeks of gestation after adjusting for preterm birth. These results were
visible on both voxel-wise (Figure 2 left panel) and tract-based analyses (Figure 3 left
panel). Positive correlations for both MTsat and MTR with GA at scan were observed when
assessed separately in term and preterm groups (Supplementary Figure 2; Supplementary
Tables 2-3).
Complementary analyses for DTI metrics showed positive correlations for FA and negative
for RD with GA at scan across the WM skeleton (Supplementary Figure 3 left panel) and
tracts (Supplementary Table 4). T1w/T2w ratio had statistically significant positive
correlations with GA at scan in the majority of tracts, except in the arcuate fasciculus,
corpus callosum and cingulum cingulate (Supplementary Table 4; Supplementary Figure 3
left panel). On average, GA at scan correlations with MTsat, MTR, FA and RD were of a
similar magnitude (mean β range across tracts |0.524| - |0.589|), whilst correlation with
T1w/T2w ratio was lower (mean β = 0.197).
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Although we observed that both MTsat and MTR positively correlate with GA at scan, the
effect of preterm birth was different for these two metrics. Compared to preterm infants,
term infants had higher MTsat values in the genu and splenium of the corpus callosum
(Figure 2 right panel). Tract-level analyses showed similar results (Figure 3 right panel). In
contrast, MTR was higher in preterm infants, with significant differences in the central WM
regions, and in the corticospinal tracts and uncinate fasciculi (Figure 2 and 3 right panels).
Complementary analysis of DTI metrics (Supplementary Figure 3 right panel,
Supplementary Table 4) showed higher FA values in the term group, with the strongest
effects observed in the genu and splenium of the corpus callosum and the uncinate. These
higher values of FA in the term group were paralleled with lower values of RD. This accords
with our previous findings in the wider cohort (Vaher et al., 2022). T1w/T2w ratio was
significantly higher in the term group across the WM skeleton and the tracts
(Supplementary Figure 3 right panel, Supplementary Table 4), with a large effect size
(mean β = |0.695|).
Figure 2: Voxel-wise analysis showing effects of GA at scan and preterm birth on magnetisation transfer imaging
metrics. Models were mutually adjusted for GA at scan and preterm status. The first row represents the WM
skeleton mask (green) where voxel values were compared. In left panel, voxels that have positive correlation with
GA at scan are indicated in red-yellow. In right panel, voxels that have higher values in preterm compared with
term group are indicated in red-yellow; voxels that have higher values in term compared with preterm group are
indicated in blue-light blue. Overlaid on the dHCP T2w 40-week template. Results are reported after 5000
permutations, p-values corrected using TFCE and FWE with a significance level of p<0.05. For visualisation:
anatomic left is on the right side of the image. GA = gestational age, MTR = magnetisation transfer ratio, MTsat =
magnetisation transfer saturation, FWE = family-wise error correction, TFCE = threshold-free cluster
enhancement.
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Figure 3: Results of the white matter tract-based analysis of magnetisation transfer imaging metrics at term-
equivalent age showing the effects of GA at MRI (left panel) and differences in preterm infants versus term-born
controls (right panel). Effect sizes are represented as standardised beta coefficients from the multiple regression
where white matter tract values were the outcomes and preterm status and GA at scan the predictors; only
statistically significant tracts (FDR-corrected across the two modalities) are coloured. Colour map for the effect
sizes was calculated separately for the effects of preterm birth and GA at scan. In left panel, red indicates positive
correlation with GA at MRI. In right panel, blue indicates higher values in term infants and red indicates higher
values in preterm infants. GA = gestational age, MTR = magnetisation transfer ratio, MTsat = magnetisation
transfer saturation.
3.3 Correlation between MTI metrics, T1w/T2w ratio, FA and RD
We performed both voxel-wise (Figure 4) and tract-wise correlations (Figure 5) of
T1w/T2w ratio, FA and RD with the MTI-derived metrics. At the voxel-wise level (Figure
4), T1w/T2w ratio had moderate positive correlations with MTsat (r = 0.446) and MTR (r =
0.328); on the other hand, FA only has weak positive correlation with MTR (r = 0.258) and
very weak correlations with MTsat (r = 0.161). However, these correlation trends are
different at the tract level (Figure 5; Supplementary Table 5) where FA shows strong
positive correlation with MTsat (mean r = 0.646) and moderate correlation with MTR
(mean r = 0.512). However, T1w/T2w ratio shows much weaker correlations (mean r =
0.257 with MTsat and mean r = 0.254 with MTR). RD had relatively stronger negative
correlations with MTsat and MTR at the voxel-wise level (r = -0.595 and r = -0.597,
respectively) and even stronger in individual white matter tracts (mean r = -0.799 and
mean r = -0.605, respectively).
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Figure 4: Two dimensional normalised density plots show the (binned voxelwise) relationship between the
magnetisation transfer imaging metrics and: (A) T1w/T2w ratio, (B) FA, and (C) RD in white matter. Correlation
coefficients presented are the repeated measures correlation calculated using rmcorr, with study participant as
the repeated measure.
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Figure 5: White matter tract-wise correlations between the two measures derived from magnetisation transfer
imaging and: (A) T1w/T2w ratio (B) FA, and (C) RD. The average Pearson’s correlation coefficient for the
relationships between the tracts was calculated by first transforming the Pearson’s r values to Fisher’s Z, taking
the average, and then back-transforming the value to Pearson’s correlation coefficient.
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4 Discussion
In this work, we used MTI to characterise myelination in the neonatal brain in association
with age at scan and preterm birth. For the first time, MTsat was applied in a neonatal
population. Across the WM, there were positive correlations between GA at scan and the
MTI metrics. Preterm birth was associated with increased MTR in central WM regions and
decreased MTsat in the genu and splenium of the corpus callosum. T1w/T2w ratio had
moderate positive correlations with MTR and MTsat at voxel level, but weaker within
major WM tracts, whilst the opposite was observed for FA. RD had the strongest negative
correlations with both MTsat and MTR across WM voxels and major tracts. This study
offers a new approach for myelin-sensitive imaging in early life, shows that MTI captures
key features of EoP, and contributes to the understanding of how commonly used WM
integrity measures relate to those more specific to myelin.
Both MTsat and MTR values in early life are remarkably lower than those reported in adult
populations (York et al., 2022b). Average MTsat and MTR values in the WM of healthy
adults are around 3.7% and 54.5%, respectively (York et al., 2022b), whilst in this neonatal
sample, the range of average MTsat and MTR values in the major WM tracts are 0.8–1.18%
and 21.5–26.0%, respectively. These values are even lower than those observed in the WM
lesions of multiple sclerosis patients (York et al., 2022b). This is likely to reflect lower
myelin density in the neonatal compared to the adult brain. However, it also raises the
question to what extent MTsat and MTR values in the neonatal brain are influenced by
myelin density as compared with other biological processes. It is important to note that
MTR is highly protocol dependent, making comparison of values across different studies
difficult; the current study applied a MT protocol similar to the one used previously in the
multiple sclerosis study (York et al., 2022b). Nevertheless, MTR values in a similar range
(20–30%) have been reported previously in preterm neonates at TEA (Nossin-Manor et al.,
2013).
Both MTsat and MTR are higher in the central (i.e. deep grey matter structures, brain stem
and central white matter regions such as the posterior limb of the internal capsule [PLIC] -
part of the corticospinal tract) compared to frontal/occipital regions, indicating higher
myelin content in the centre of the brain. By quantifying the mean values across major WM
tracts, we found that corticospinal tract and the anterior thalamic radiation had the highest
level of myelination whilst the inferior longitudinal fasciculus and the genu/splenium of
the corpus callosum were among the least myelinated tracts at TEA. Similar varying levels
of myelination across WM regions in early infancy have been observed in other studies
using different MRI techniques to measure myelination such as the T1w/T2w ratio
(Filimonova et al., 2023; Grotheer et al., 2023; Soun et al., 2017), T1 (or its inverse R1) or
T2 (or its inverse R2) mapping, (Grotheer et al., 2022; Kulikova et al., 2015; Leppert et al.,
2009), or multi-component relaxometry to quantify myelin water fraction (Deoni et al.,
2011; Melbourne et al., 2016, 2013). These studies have also reported features consistent
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with higher levels of myelination in the centre of the brain such as in the PLIC and lower
levels in frontal and occipital regions, including the genu and splenium of the corpus
callosum.
We observed strong positive correlations between GA at scan and MTR/MTsat across the
WM, indicating increased myelination content with increasing age. These results are in line
with previous studies showing higher MTR values in WM fibres with increasing age at scan
during the neonatal period in preterm infants (Nossin-Manor et al., 2015, 2013).
Furthermore, studies using other MRI methods to quantify myelin density in early life have
found positive correlations with age at scan, both from preterm birth up to TEA as well as
postnatally, with the fastest increase in myelin content happening between birth and first
year of life. This includes methods such as calculation of T1w/T2w ratio (Filimonova et al.,
2023; Grotheer et al., 2023; Lee et al., 2015; Thompson et al., 2022), T1 and T2 mapping
(Counsell et al., 2003; Deoni et al., 2012; Grotheer et al., 2022; Leppert et al., 2009;
Melbourne et al., 2016; Schneider et al., 2016), as well as myelin water fraction imaging
(Dean et al., 2014; Deoni et al., 2012, 2011; Melbourne et al., 2016).Taken together, these
data suggest that MTI is capturing the progression in myelin density that takes place during
the developmental window period of data acquisition used in this study.
Decreased myelin content has been demonstrated in the preterm brain at TEA (Grotheer et
al., 2023; Hagmann et al., 2009; Pannek et al., 2013) and this appears to persist throughout
childhood (Thompson et al., 2022; Vandewouw et al., 2019), though regional effects vary
between studies. Here, we found lower MTsat values in the preterm brain, with strongest
effects in the genu and splenium of the corpus callosum and the inferior longitudinal
fasciculus, reflecting lower myelination in these regions compared to term-born controls.
Interestingly, these tracts had the lowest values of MTsat, suggesting that areas with lower
myelination in the neonatal brain may be more affected by early exposure to extrauterine
life. Previous studies have shown that regions with lower myelin content at birth, such as
the genu and splenium of the corpus callosum, have the fastest increase in myelin density
postnatally in the first year of life compared to regions with higher levels of myelin at birth,
such as the corticospinal tract (Deoni et al., 2011; Filimonova et al., 2023; Grotheer et al.,
2022). In contrast, studies of preterm infants from preterm birth up to TEA report that
myelin density increases the fastest in the PLIC, whilst myelin imaging parameters change
very little in the genu and splenium of the corpus callosum during this period (Melbourne
et al., 2013; Nossin-Manor et al., 2013; Schneider et al., 2016); though some studies suggest
linear increase in myelin MRI parameters in all white matter regions over this
developmental time period (Counsell et al., 2003). Collectively, this suggests that preterm
birth may have an effect on “late-myelinating” WM regions and that with MTsat this is
already evident at TEA. Indeed, a recent study suggested that the rate of myelin
development is more rapid in utero and slows down ex utero, leading to lower myelination
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in the preterm brain (Grotheer et al., 2023). Future studies are needed to ascertain if the
lower MTsat values in the preterm WM persist into later developmental periods.
Counter-intuitively, we found higher MTR in preterm than term WM, particularly in tracts
that had high MTR/MTsat values. However, it is important to remember that MTR is
susceptible to T1 relaxation effects (Helms et al., 2008b). Importantly, none of the WM
regions that showed higher MTR in the preterm WM had a correspondingly higher values
of MTsat. Indeed, increase in cellular/axonal density and myelin-related macromolecules,
paralleled with decreasing water content in the developing brain can result in increased
MTR as well as R1 (Grotheer et al., 2022; Nossin-Manor et al., 2015; Yeatman et al., 2014).
Whilst MTR has been shown to reflect myelin content in histological analysis in the adult
brain (Mancini et al., 2020; Schmierer et al., 2004), to our knowledge, MTR has not been
validated in terms of its correlation with histological myelin measurements in the neonatal
brain. These results emphasise previous observations that caution is required when
interpreting MTR data because of the sensitivity of R1 to a number of biological processes,
such as cellular density, iron concentration, calcium content and axonal count and size
which may have stronger contributions in the infant brain (Grotheer et al., 2022; Harkins et
al., 2016). Thus, the effects of preterm birth observed for MTR may be driven by other
factors besides myelin density.
The final aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between myelin-sensitive
MTI metrics and commonly used neuroimaging markers of WM dysmaturation/integrity –
T1w/T2w ratio, FA and RD. Previously, weak positive correlations have been reported
between T1w/T2w ratio and MTsat (r=0.28 (Saccenti et al., 2020)) and strong correlations
between T1w/T2w ratio and MTR (r=0.63 (Pareto et al., 2020)) in normal appearing WM in
patients with multiple sclerosis. However, these relationships have not been studied in the
neonatal brain. We observed moderate positive correlations between T1w/T2w ratio and
MTR as well as MTsat in the WM at the voxel-level and weak positive correlations at tract-
level. When investigating the correlations with FA, there was the opposite phenomenon as
the one observed with T1w/T2w ratio: the average tract correlations within WM tracts are
stronger than the voxel-wise correlations. Positive correlations between MTR and FA in
WM regions at TEA have been shown previously (Nossin-Manor et al., 2015, 2013). Our
results could potentially reflect different patterns of myelination across the brain. The
general pattern of myelination relies on a caudo-rostral gradient, a progression from the
brain centre to the periphery, in sensory and motor pathways before associative pathways
(Dubois et al., 2021). This is reflected by our findings of correlations with differing
magnitude between MTI metrics, and T1w/T2w ratio and FA across the WM tracts. FA is
well-known to be affected by multiple factors based on the water content and geometry of
the tracts (Figley et al., 2022), especially in crossing fibres areas, which represent around
90% of the brain (Jeurissen et al., 2013). This effect is less pronounced within the major
WM tracts, where the geometry is simpler and the fibres are better/tightly aligned (Figley
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et al., 2022). This could explain why, on average, the correlation of FA with the MTI metrics
is stronger in specific tracts compared to the whole WM voxel-wise approach. This finding
may suggest that within major WM tracts, myelin could have a significant contribution to
restricted water diffusion and that the development of axonal structure and myelin are
closely coupled. On the other hand, the relatively high positive correlations of the
T1w/T2w ratio with the MTI metrics at the whole WM level are highly reduced when
looking at the tract level. This suggests that anatomical specificity is important in
understanding the contribution of myelin to commonly used measures of WM integrity.
However, the differences between tract- and voxel-level correlations between the metrics
need to be investigated in future studies as it could be that some filtering should be applied
to reduce noise in voxel-wise correlations.
Compared with FA and T1w/T2w ratio, RD had stronger negative correlations with MTsat
and MTR. Negative correlation between RD and MTR has been shown in neonates
previously (Nossin-Manor et al., 2015, 2013). The correlation magnitude was similar for
MTsat and MTR across the WM voxels, whilst, similar to FA, in major WM tracts, RD had
even stronger negative correlations with MTsat. Collectively, this finding illustrates strong
correlations between RD and more myelin-sensitive imaging metrics, supporting previous
literature that suggests RD sensitivity to myelin pathologies (Lazari and Lipp, 2021;
Mancini et al., 2020; Song et al., 2002).
This study is the first to report MTsat values in a sample of neonates comprised of term-
born controls and preterm infants without major parenchymal lesions, i.e. a sample that is
representative of the majority of survivors of neonatal intensive care. A multimodal
acquisition protocol enabled co-registration of the MT images to diffusion space for
delineation of major white matter tracts. This study has some limitations. We used a large
voxel size of 2 mm3 for the MTI, but this was required to optimise acquisition parameters to
achieve shorter acquisition times. Neonatal MT images are challenging to align to other
modalities due to the low contrast between tissue characteristics of the neonatal brain
(Dubois et al., 2021); to overcome this limitation, the T1w acquired during the MTI
acquisition was co-registered to the T1w structural image, and this transformation was
used as a bridge to move the maps from one space to another. Although calculation of
MTsat inherently corrects for T1 relaxation and B1+ inhomogeneity effects (Helms et al.,
2008b), correction for residual B1+ effects may still be needed (Rowley et al., 2021).
Therefore, future studies which include B1+ map acquisitions are needed to ascertain
whether B1+ correction of MTsat maps modifies interpretation of the main findings. It was
beyond the scope of this study to investigate all available MT-based metrics; in future
studies it would be useful to assess whether these results have histopathological correlates,
and whether they are comparable to other quantitative MT-based indices such as the MPF
(Kisel et al., 2022; Yarnykh, 2020).
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Myelin imaging in infancy may provide novel biomarkers for neurodevelopmental
outcomes later in childhood. For example, higher myelin density in infancy and early
childhood, measured using MTI-derived MPF (Corrigan et al., 2022; Zhao et al., 2022),
T1w/T2w ratio (Darki et al., 2021), or myelin water fraction (Dai et al., 2019; Deoni et al.,
2016; O’Muircheartaigh et al., 2014), correlate with improved cognitive outcomes such as
performance in executive function tasks and language skills. Furthermore, T1w/T2w ratio
and T2 relaxometry values in 1-9 month old infants have been associated with familial risk
of autism spectrum disorder (Darki et al., 2021) and cerebral palsy (Chen et al., 2018),
respectively. To our knowledge, only one study has investigated the predictive value of
myelin MRI measures at TEA for later outcomes, finding no significant relationships with
T1w/T2w ratio at TEA, though significant associations were demonstrated at 7 and 13
years of life with a range of cognitive scores (Thompson et al., 2022). This suggests that
there is uncertainty to what extent variation in neonatal myelin imaging metrics, including
MTsat, associates with neurodevelopmental outcomes in childhood. The participants in this
study are part of a longitudinal cohort, which provides opportunity in the future to assess
relationships between neonatal MTI and functional outcomes in childhood.
5 Conclusions
This study provides a new characterisation of the neonatal brain using MTI, and
demonstrates the utility of the technique for studying disorders of myelination in early life.
Both MTsat and MTR increase with GA at scan. In term compared with preterm infants,
MTsat is higher while MTR is lower. This could suggest that MTsat may be a more reliable
biomarker of myelin in the neonatal brain, and cautions the use of MTR to measure myelin
density due to the confounding effects of R1/T1. In addition, by correlating MTI metrics
with common WM integrity biomarkers, FA, RD and the T1w/T2w ratio, we observed
interesting opposing trends at voxel- and tract-level, which emphasises the necessity to
incorporate anatomical information when interpreting the contribution of myelin to non-
specific imaging metrics in early life studies. Future studies will investigate the utility of
preterm birth-associated differences in neonatal MTsat in terms of their relevance to
neurodevelopmental and cognitive outcomes.
6 Data and code availability
Requests for anonymised data will be considered under the study's Data Access and
Collaboration policy and governance process (https://www.ed.ac.uk/centre-reproductive-
health/tebc/about-tebc/for-researchers/data-access-collaboration). The scripts for the
data analysis in this paper are available here: https://git.ecdf.ed.ac.uk/jbrl/neonatal-mtsat.
7 Author contributions
Manuel Blesa Cábez: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Formal analysis, Data
Curation, Writing - Original Draft, Visualization; Kadi Vaher: Conceptualization,
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Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Data Curation, Writing - Original Draft,
Visualization; Elizabeth N. York: Formal analysis, Software, Writing - Review & Editing;
Paola Galdi: Formal analysis, Writing - Review & Editing; Gemma Sullivan: Investigation,
Data Curation; David Q. Stoye: Investigation, Data Curation, Writing - Review & Editing; Jill
Hall: Data Curation, Project administration; Amy E. Corrigan: Investigation, Data Curation;
Alan J. Quigley: Investigation; Adam D. Waldman: Writing - Review & Editing; Mark E.
Bastin: Methodology, Software, Resources, Writing - Review & Editing; Michael J.
Thrippleton: Methodology, Software, Resources, Writing - Review & Editing; James P.
Boardman: Conceptualization, Methodology, Writing - Original Draft, Supervision, Funding
acquisition.
8 Funding information
This work was supported by Theirworld (www.theirworld.org) and a UKRI MRC
programme grant (MR/X003434/1). It was undertaken in the MRC Centre for Reproductive
Health, which is funded by a MRC Centre Grant (MRC G1002033). KV is funded by the
Wellcome Translational Neuroscience PhD Programme at the University of Edinburgh
(108890/Z/15/Z). PG is partly supported by the Wellcome-University of Edinburgh ISSF3
(IS3-R1.1320/21). MJT is supported by NHS Lothian Research and Development Office.
ENY was supported by a Chief Scientist Office SPRINT MND/MS Studentship (MMPP/01)
and funding from the Anne Rowling Regenerative Neurology Clinic, Edinburgh, United
Kingdom (UK).
9 Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare no competing interests.
10 Acknowledgments
This research was funded in whole, or in part, by the Wellcome. For the purpose of open
access, the author has applied a CC BY public copyright licence to any Author Accepted
Manuscript version arising from this submission. We are grateful to the families who
consented to take part in the study. Neonatal participants were scanned in the University of
Edinburgh Imaging Research MRI Facility at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh which was
established with funding from The Wellcome Trust, Dunhill Medical Trust, Edinburgh and
Lothians Research Foundation, Theirworld, The Muir Maxwell Trust and many other
sources. We are thankful to all the University's imaging research staff for providing the
infant scanning.
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