Impaired brain development has been observed in newborns with congenital heart disease (CHD). We performed graph theoretical analyses and network-based statistics (NBS) to assess global brain network topology and identify subnetworks of altered connectivity in infants with CHD prior to cardiac surgery. Fifty-eight infants with critical/serious CHD prior to surgery and 116 matched healthy controls as part of the developing Human Connectome Project (dHCP) underwent MRI on a 3T system and high angular resolution diffusion MRI (HARDI) was obtained. Multi-tissue constrained spherical deconvolution, anatomically constrained probabilistic tractography (ACT) and spherical-deconvolution informed filtering of tractograms (SIFT2) was used to construct weighted structural networks. Network topology was assessed and NBS was used to identify structural connectivity differences between CHD and control groups. Structural networks were partitioned into core and peripheral nodes, and edges classed as core, peripheral, or feeder. NBS identified one subnetwork with reduced structural connectivity in CHD infants involving basal ganglia, amygdala, hippocampus, cerebellum, vermis, and temporal and parieto-occipital lobe, primarily affecting core nodes and edges. However, we did not find significantly different global network characteristics in CHD neonates. This locally affected sub-network with reduced connectivity could explain, at least in part, the neurodevelopmental impairments associated with CHD.

在患有先天性心脏病（CHD）的新生儿中观察到大脑发育受损。我们进行了图论分析和基于网络的统计（NBS）来评估全球大脑网络拓扑并识别心脏手术前先心病婴儿的连接改变的子网络。作为正在开发的人类连接组计划 (dHCP) 的一部分，58 名术前患有危重/严重 CHD 的婴儿和 116 名匹配的健康对照者在 3T 系统上接受了 MRI，并获得了高角分辨率扩散 MRI (HARDI)。使用多组织约束球形反卷积、解剖学约束概率纤维束成像（ACT）和球形反褶积通知纤维束图过滤（SIFT2）来构建加权结构网络。评估网络拓扑并使用 NBS 来识别 CHD 和对照组之间的结构连接差异。结构网络分为核心节点和外围节点，边缘分为核心节点、外围节点或馈线节点。 NBS 发现了先心病婴儿中结构连接性降低的一个子网络，涉及基底节、杏仁核、海马、小脑、蚓部、颞叶和顶枕叶，主要影响核心节点和边缘。然而，我们没有发现先心病新生儿的全球网络特征存在显着差异。这种连接性降低的局部受影响的子网络可以至少部分地解释与先心病相关的神经发育障碍。