Age-related features of structural MRI of the brain and methods for their quantification

Abstract

Understanding the formation of the trajectories of the brain structural development in relation to emotional and cognitive functions is an important scientific task for identifying and predicting the stages of brain maturation. This review systematically examines structural magnetic resonance imaging studies of the brain anatomical development in children and adolescents. The literature reveals inconsistency due to the difference in participants demographic groups and methodological approaches. Nevertheless, some patterns have been identified, such as age-related changes in the ratios of white and gray matter, thickness and area of the cerebral cortex both total and regional. The most observable results underline that the brain maturation is a heterochronous processes. For instance, the frontal region of the cerebral cortex has a longer maturation trajectory compared to the occipital region. Gender differences reflected in higher values of volume indicators have been identified in many studies. This article also describes the methods of quantification of structural magnetic resonance imaging, which allowed us to determine the value of more than two hundred parameters. There are some explanations of the advantage of the surface-based morphometry by using the FreeSurfer software, developed by the Computational Neuroimaging Laboratory at the A. A. Martinos Biomedical Imaging Center at Harvard University. The authors substantiate the necessity of further experimental studies of age-related changes in surface-based morphometry parameters in relation to emotional and cognitive functions in children from 7 to 20 years old.