Biology subjects

Bano, W.

Publications and source records attributed to Bano, W..

4 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

Functional connectome harmonics capture early brain organization and maturity in neonates

The functional organization of the human brain is established early, yet the ontogeny of its large-scale functional gradients remains unclear. Using resting-state fMRI data from 714 neonates in the Developing Human Connectome Project, we mapped neonatal brain gradients via functional connectome harmonics (FCH). We identified adult-like sensory-to-multimodal and cognitive gradient patterns present at birth. Applying three FCH-derived metrics--entropy, power, and energy--we found that power and energy were higher in term-born compared to preterm neonates, while entropy was elevated in preterms. These metrics predicted up to ~30% of postmenstrual age, indicating their biological relevance. Our findings reveal that the neonatal brain possesses a robust gradient architecture underpinning early functional organization, offering novel biomarkers for assessing brain maturity and the impact of prematurity on neurodevelopment.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2025

Physical exercise and brain network dynamics: reduction of frontoparietal-striatal connectivity following 1 hour of aerobic cycling

Physical exercise is beneficial for metabolic health and cognitive performance. In addition, exercise can be highly pleasurable and and serves as an effective stress reliever. Extant studies have highlighted frontal, parietal, and subcortical brain changes following acute bouts of exercise. However, slower, slightly delayed brain correlates after exercise at the network level have not been studied. Therefore, this studys objective was to investigate the changes in dynamic functional connectivity after 60 minutes of exercise in healthy males. Here we measured a 6-minute resting state fMRI in 24 young males at baseline and after a 60-minute cycling exercise challenge. Apart from routine preprocessing, the data were denoised with FSL-FIX and modeled with i) leading eigenvector dynamics analysis (LEiDA) to probe whole brain network dynamics and ii) with group independent component analysis (ICA) and dual regression to quantify static brain connectivity. The within subject statistical tests compared baseline to post-exercise conditions. We found that a striato-fronto-parietal network is destabilized after exercise, as indicated by a lower probability of occurrence in dynamic analysis through LEiDA. The brain areas in the network include the bilateral caudate, putamen and pallidum as well as middle orbitofrontal, frontal operculum, frontal trigonum and inferior parietal cortices. No differences between baseline and post exercise conditions were found in the dual regression of the group ICA components. We conclude that 60 minutes of cycling causes a prolonged effect in brain network dynamics, reducing synchronization between the striatum and frontoparietal networks with respect to baseline. This provides insights into the network-level neural correlates of aerobic exercise, which may be directly linked with the stress relieving effects of physical exercise.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

Pre- and postnatal maternal depressive symptoms associate with localconnectivity of the left amygdala in 5-year-olds.

BackgroundMaternal depressive symptoms can influence brain development in offspring, prenatally through intrauterine programming, and postnatally through caregiving related mother-child interaction. MethodsThe participants were 5-year-old mother-child dyads from the FinnBrain Birth Cohort Study (N = 68; 28 boys, 40 girls). Maternal depressive symptoms were assessed with the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) at gestational week 24, 3 months, 6 months, and 12 months postnatal. Childrens brain imaging data were acquired with task-free functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at the age of 5 years in 7 min scans while watching the Inscapes movie. The derived brain metrics included whole brain regional homogeneity (ReHo) and seed-based connectivity maps of the bilateral amygdalae. ResultsWe found that maternal depressive symptoms were positively associated with ReHo values of the left amygdala. The association was highly localised and strongest with the maternal depressive symptoms at three months postnatal. Seed-based connectivity analysis did not reveal associations between distal connectivity of the left amygdala region and maternal depressive symptoms. ConclusionsThese results suggest that maternal depressive symptoms soon after birth may influence offsprings neurodevelopment in the local functional coherence in the left amygdala. They underline the potential relevance of postnatal maternal distress exposure on neurodevelopment that has received much less attention than prenatal exposures. These results offer a possible thus far understudied pathway of intergenerational effects of perinatal depression that should be further explored in future studies.

neuroscience↗

bioRxiv2024

The FinnBrain Multimodal Neonatal Template and Atlas Collection: T1, T2, and DTI brain templates, and accompanying cortical and subcortical atlases

The accurate processing of neonatal and infant brain MRI data is crucially important for developmental neuroscience, but presents challenges that child and adult data do not. Tissue segmentation and image coregistration accuracy can be improved by optimizing template images and / or related segmentation procedures. Here, we describe the construction of the FinnBrain Neonate (FBN-125) template; a multi-contrast template with T1- and T2-weighted as well as diffusion tensor imaging derived fractional anisotropy and mean diffusivity images. The template is symmetric and aligned to the Talairach-like MNI 152 template and has high spatial resolution (0.5 mm3). In addition, we provide atlas labels, constructed from manual segmentations, for cortical grey matter, white matter, cerebrospinal fluid, brainstem, and cerebellum as well as the bilateral hippocampi, amygdalae, caudate nuclei, putamina, globi pallidi, and thalami. We provide this multi-contrast template along with the labelled atlases for the use of the neuroscience community in the hope that it will prove useful in advancing developmental neuroscience, for example, by helping to achieve reliable means for spatial normalization and measures of neonate brain structure via automated computational methods. Additionally, we provide standard co-registration files that will enable investigators to reliably transform their statistical maps to the adult MNI space, which has the potential to improve the consistency and comparability of neonatal studies or the use of adult MNI space atlases in neonatal neuroimaging.

neuroscience↗