BACKGROUND Despite advances in antenatal and neonatal care, preterm birth remains a leading cause of neurological disabilities in children. Infants born prematurely, particularly those delivered at the earliest gestational ages, commonly demonstrate increased rates of impairment across multiple neurodevelopmental domains. Indeed, the current literature establishes that preterm birth is a leading risk factor for cerebral palsy, is associated with executive function deficits, increases risk for impaired receptive and expressive language skills, and is linked with higher rates of co-occurring attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety, and autism spectrum disorders. These same infants also demonstrate elevated rates of aberrant cerebral structural and functional connectivity, with persistent changes evident across advanced magnetic resonance imaging modalities as early as the neonatal period. Emerging findings from cross-sectional and longitudinal investigations increasingly suggest that aberrant connectivity within key functional networks and white matter tracts may underlie the neurodevelopmental impairments common in this population. MAIN BODY This review begins by highlighting the elevated rates of neurodevelopmental disorders across domains in this clinical population, describes the patterns of aberrant structural and functional connectivity common in prematurely-born infants and children, and then reviews the increasingly established body of literature delineating the relationship between these brain abnormalities and adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes. We also detail important, typically understudied, clinical, and social variables that may influence these relationships among preterm children, including heritability and psychosocial risks. CONCLUSION Future work in this domain should continue to leverage longitudinal evaluations of preterm infants which include both neuroimaging and detailed serial neurodevelopmental assessments to further characterize relationships between imaging measures and impairment, information necessary for advancing our understanding of modifiable risk factors underlying these disorders and best practices for improving neurodevelopmental trajectories in this high-risk clinical population.

中文翻译：

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早产儿的异常结构和功能连接以及神经发育障碍。

背景 尽管产前和新生儿护理取得了进步，但早产仍然是儿童神经残疾的主要原因。早产婴儿，尤其是早产婴儿，通常表现出多个神经发育领域的损伤率增加。事实上，目前的文献表明，早产是脑瘫的主要危险因素，与执行功能缺陷有关，增加了接受和表达语言技能受损的风险，并且与同时发生的注意缺陷多动障碍的发生率较高有关，焦虑和自闭症谱系障碍。这些相同的婴儿也表现出大脑结构和功能连接异常率升高，早在新生儿期，先进的磁共振成像模式就会出现明显的持续变化。横断面和纵向研究的新发现越来越多地表明，关键功能网络和白质束内的异常连接可能是该人群常见的神经发育障碍的基础。主体 这篇综述首先强调了这一临床人群中神经发育障碍跨领域的高发率，描述了早产婴儿和儿童中常见的异常结构和功能连接模式，然后回顾了越来越多的文献来描述这种关系这些大脑异常和不良神经发育结果之间的关系。我们还详细介绍了重要的，通常未被充分研究的，可能影响早产儿之间这些关系的临床和社会变量，包括遗传力和社会心理风险。结论 该领域的未来工作应继续利用对早产儿的纵向评估，包括神经影像学和详细的系列神经发育评估，以进一步表征影像学测量与损伤之间的关系，以及推进我们对这些疾病背后的可改变风险因素和最佳实践的理解所需的信息用于改善这一高危临床人群的神经发育轨迹。