Study Of The Brain Morphological Characteristics And Correlation With Clinical Symptoms In Children With Global Developmental Delay

Objective:This study uses voxel-based morphology(VBM)and surface-based morphology(SBM)to explore the brain morphological characteristics of children with global developmental delay(GDD),and further explore its correlation with the scores of Griffiths development scales-Chinese edition(GDS-C),so as to find out the potential brain imaging markers of GDD from the perspective of brain morphology,and provide a new basis for early diagnosis and intervention treatment of GDD.Methods:This study included 25 children aged 12-60 months diagnosed with GDD in the Department of Developmental Behavioral Pediatrics at the First Hospital of Jilin University from April 2021 to September 2022,and all participants completed the GDSC scale assessment.The control group included 25 children aged 12-60 months with typically development(TD)and first episode of febrile convulsion selected from the medical record system and PACS system of the Department of Radiology of the First Hospital of Jilin University from January 2020 to December 2022.All subjects underwent 3D-T1 WI scans on the same GE 3.0T MRI machine.And VBM and SBM were used to analyze the obtained brain structural images to find the changes of gray matter volume and cortical thickness in the patients with GDD.The processed data were corrected using Family-wise error(FWE),and differences were considered statistically significant at P < 0.001.The correlation between the values of the brain regions with differences in GDD and the scores of GDS-C was calculated by correlation analysis.P< 0.05 was considered to be statistically significant.Results:(1)According to the basic data analysis,we found that there were no significant statistical difference in age and gender between the patients with GDD and the typically development group.(2)VBM results showed that compared with the control group,the gray matter volume of right supplementary motor area(SMA),right medial prefrontal cortex(m PFC),right superior temporal gyrus(STG),right insula,right temporal pole,left cerebellum,right superior occipital gyrus,right precuneus and right middle occipital gyrus in GDD group were increased(FWE corrected,P<0.001),and no regions decreased.(3)SBM results showed that compared with the control group,the cortical thickness of left pericalcarine cortex,bilateral lateral occipital cortex and right precentral in GDD group were increased(FWE corrected,P<0.001),also no regions decreased.(4)The gray matter volume of the left cerebellum was positively correlated with the scores of "movement"," Individual society ","hearing and language","hand-eye coordination" and "performance” in GDD group.Conclusion:(1)This study combines VBM with SBM to detect abnormal changes in gray matter volume and cortical thickness in patients with GDD.The changes in these brain areas are likely to indicate that the abnormalities of gray matter volume and cortical thickness in these areas may be the neurophysiological basis of the corresponding clinical symptoms in patients with GDD.(2)Correlation analysis revealed a significant positive correlation between the gray matter volume of the left cerebellar hemisphere and multiple scores on the GDSC scale in children with GDD.This suggests that there may be a compensatory effect of the left cerebellar hemisphere in children with GDD,that is,the greater the gray matter volume of the left cerebellar hemisphere,the less severe the symptoms.