Quantifying Fetal Periventricular White Matter Development Using Multimodal MRI

TY - JOUR

T1 - Quantifying Fetal Periventricular White Matter Development Using Multimodal MRI

AU - Sousa, Helena

AU - Gartner, Abi

AU - Uus, Alena

AU - Wilson, Sian

AU - Kyriakopoulou, Vanessa

AU - Hutter, Jana

AU - Story, Lisa

AU - Hall, Megan

AU - McAlonan, Grainne

AU - Hajnal, Jo

AU - Rutherford, Mary

AU - Hammers, Alexander

AU - Tournier, Jacques-Donald

AU - Deprez, Maria

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2026.

PY - 2025/9/23

Y1 - 2025/9/23

N2 - The periventricular white matter (PVWM) in the developing brain is of high clinical relevance due to its vulnerability to injury during fetal and neonatal life, particularly in preterm infants, where damage in these regions can disrupt early brain connectivity and lead to important clinical consequences in postnatal life. Despite its importance, there are currently no standardised methods for delineating the PVWM in fetal MRI. In this study, we address this gap by characterising the normative anatomical and microstructural development of the PVWM across 21–36 weeks of gestational age (GA) using multimodal MRI data. We define the PVWM in a 0.5 mm isotropic T2-weighted fetal brain atlas from the developing Human Connectome Project (dHCP) and train an Attention U-Net model for automated PVWM segmentation. Using MRI data from multiple fetal cohorts, we analyse developmental trends in PVWM macro- and microstructure and discuss possible correlations with the underlying neurobiological processes occurring in the fetal brain. Our findings establish a normative reference framework for in utero PVWM maturation, providing a foundation for identifying atypical developmental patterns.

AB - The periventricular white matter (PVWM) in the developing brain is of high clinical relevance due to its vulnerability to injury during fetal and neonatal life, particularly in preterm infants, where damage in these regions can disrupt early brain connectivity and lead to important clinical consequences in postnatal life. Despite its importance, there are currently no standardised methods for delineating the PVWM in fetal MRI. In this study, we address this gap by characterising the normative anatomical and microstructural development of the PVWM across 21–36 weeks of gestational age (GA) using multimodal MRI data. We define the PVWM in a 0.5 mm isotropic T2-weighted fetal brain atlas from the developing Human Connectome Project (dHCP) and train an Attention U-Net model for automated PVWM segmentation. Using MRI data from multiple fetal cohorts, we analyse developmental trends in PVWM macro- and microstructure and discuss possible correlations with the underlying neurobiological processes occurring in the fetal brain. Our findings establish a normative reference framework for in utero PVWM maturation, providing a foundation for identifying atypical developmental patterns.

KW - Automated Segmentation

KW - Brain maturation

KW - Fetal brain MRI

KW - Multimodal MRI

KW - Periventricular White Matter

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105018303920

U2 - 10.1007/978-3-032-05997-0_10

DO - 10.1007/978-3-032-05997-0_10

M3 - Conference paper

AN - SCOPUS:105018303920

SN - 0302-9743

VL - 16118

SP - 105

EP - 115

JO - Lecture Notes in Computer Science

JF - Lecture Notes in Computer Science

T2 - 10th International Workshop on Perinatal, Preterm and Paediatric Image Analysis, PIPPI 2025, Held in Conjunction with 28th International Conference on Medical Imaging and Computer Assisted Intervention, MICCAI 2025

Y2 - 27 September 2025 through 27 September 2025

ER -