Healthy Discoveries: Study shows how brain's wiring develops in babies

Healthy discoveries

British scientists have exhibited for the first time how our brain "wiring" develops in the first few months of life and say their detections will help in the understanding of a range of brain and psychiatric disorders.

Researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry at King's College London had scanned babies brains to monitor the formation of insulating layers around nerve cells using a new imaging technique.

They had found that by the age of nine months, the process -- known as myelination and vital for normal brain function -- was apparent in all brain areas and in some regions had developed to a near adult-like level.

"We already know that insulating myelin sheaths form the cornerstone of our neurodevelopment. Without them, messages to and from the brain would be in disorder," said Sean Deoni, who led the study, published by the Journal of Neuroscience.

"By understanding precisely how myelin develops and when this process breaks down, we hope to be able to tailor treatments for vulnerable patients, like premature babies, and understand what discriminates those that develop normally from those who have some delay or disability."

Damage to the myelination process is thought to redound to a range of neurological and psychiatric diseases, including autism and mental disability.

In very premature babies, myelination can be especially prone to damage, and the researchers said that they hoped their new imaging technique in future would allow doctors to directly measure whether the therapies given to premature babies are able to help normal brain development.

Deoni's team scanned 14 healthy babies who were born at full term. They scanned the babies while they were asleep using a specially-modified, quiet, baby-friendly MRI scanner.

The scientists scanned the babies between 3 and 11 months every month to build up a picture of their myelin development and found that by 9 months and they could see that myelination had taken place in all areas of the brain.

"Till now, we haven't been able to display how myelination develops in babies but this new MRI technique permits us to do just that," said Declan Murphy, also from King's College London, who oversaw the research.

He said the technique could now be used to understand how distinctions in the way brains are wired up relate to neurological and mental disorders that may not become clear until later in life.

"The next step to scan premature babies and see how their myelin development varies from babies born full term, and how connections in the brains of babies who are at major risk for developing autism vary from others," he said.

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