Väitös (psykiatria): LL Eero Silver
Aika
3.11.2023 klo 12.00 - 16.00
LL Eero Silver esittää väitöskirjansa ”Mapping cortical brain development, early life exposures and neural correlates of language skills: findings from the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study” julkisesti tarkastettavaksi Turun yliopistossa perjantaina 3.11.2023 klo 12.00 (Turun yliopisto, Educarium, Edu2, Assistentinkatu 5, Turku).
Yleisön on mahdollista osallistua väitökseen myös etäyhteyden kautta: https://echo360.org.uk/section/3ea4564b-e12f-4c9f-8052-e4dc11708c2a/public (kopioi linkki selaimeen).
Vastaväittäjänä toimii professori Leena Haataja (Helsingin yliopisto) ja kustoksena dosentti Jetro Tuulari (Turun yliopisto). Tilaisuus on suomenkielinen. Väitöksen alana on psykiatria.
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Tiivistelmä väitöstutkimuksesta:
The human brain starts to develop in utero during the first trimester of pregnancy, and rapid structural growth continues postnatally during the first years of life. This highlights early childhood as a critical period for various neurodevelopmental disorders, but also an ideal point in time for interventions to positively affect later neurodevelopment. In addition, many environmental factors and parental health profiles are associated with a child’s brain development already in the prenatal period.
In this thesis, we studied early brain development using brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data of healthy five-year-olds. The participating children and their families were a part of a larger FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study population. First, we assessed modern segmentation tools designed for brain image editing and present a segmentation protocol that we have applied in our MRI data. Second, we studied how structural brain development associates with changing perinatal factors and environmental variables at five years of age. Finally, we review the latest findings of language-related structural MRI studies carried out with children aged from birth to two years.
While presenting our segmentation protocol, we discovered that with appropriate quality assessments, the widely used FreeSurfer segmentation tool can be reliably used to analyse cortical metrics of MR images of the five-year-olds. We found that sex, obstetric variables and maternal perinatal health profile were associated with cortical development in five-year-olds. Different environmental variables modulated cortical development in five-year-olds compared to infant MRI studies, carried out with similar analyses. During the first two years of life, the implicated cerebral areas included many established components of the language networks; including frontal and temporal regions of the brain. These regions associated with language skills.
This thesis confirms that early exposures affect brain development through early childhood, and we have created a segmentation protocol that can be implemented with the structural MRI data. Language development is associated with school performance, and this thesis lays the foundations for future studies that will continue during children of school age also in the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study.
Yleisön on mahdollista osallistua väitökseen myös etäyhteyden kautta: https://echo360.org.uk/section/3ea4564b-e12f-4c9f-8052-e4dc11708c2a/public (kopioi linkki selaimeen).
Vastaväittäjänä toimii professori Leena Haataja (Helsingin yliopisto) ja kustoksena dosentti Jetro Tuulari (Turun yliopisto). Tilaisuus on suomenkielinen. Väitöksen alana on psykiatria.
***
Tiivistelmä väitöstutkimuksesta:
The human brain starts to develop in utero during the first trimester of pregnancy, and rapid structural growth continues postnatally during the first years of life. This highlights early childhood as a critical period for various neurodevelopmental disorders, but also an ideal point in time for interventions to positively affect later neurodevelopment. In addition, many environmental factors and parental health profiles are associated with a child’s brain development already in the prenatal period.
In this thesis, we studied early brain development using brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) data of healthy five-year-olds. The participating children and their families were a part of a larger FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study population. First, we assessed modern segmentation tools designed for brain image editing and present a segmentation protocol that we have applied in our MRI data. Second, we studied how structural brain development associates with changing perinatal factors and environmental variables at five years of age. Finally, we review the latest findings of language-related structural MRI studies carried out with children aged from birth to two years.
While presenting our segmentation protocol, we discovered that with appropriate quality assessments, the widely used FreeSurfer segmentation tool can be reliably used to analyse cortical metrics of MR images of the five-year-olds. We found that sex, obstetric variables and maternal perinatal health profile were associated with cortical development in five-year-olds. Different environmental variables modulated cortical development in five-year-olds compared to infant MRI studies, carried out with similar analyses. During the first two years of life, the implicated cerebral areas included many established components of the language networks; including frontal and temporal regions of the brain. These regions associated with language skills.
This thesis confirms that early exposures affect brain development through early childhood, and we have created a segmentation protocol that can be implemented with the structural MRI data. Language development is associated with school performance, and this thesis lays the foundations for future studies that will continue during children of school age also in the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study.
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