Functional and diffusion MRI reveal the neurophysiological basis of neonates’ noxious-stimulus evoked brain activity

Luke Baxter, Fiona Moultrie, Sean Fitzgibbon, Marianne Aspbury, Roshni Mansfield, Matteo Bastiani, Richard Rogers, Saad Jbabdi, Eugene Duff and Rebeccah Slater ()
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Luke Baxter: University of Oxford
Fiona Moultrie: University of Oxford
Sean Fitzgibbon: University of Oxford
Marianne Aspbury: University of Oxford
Roshni Mansfield: University of Oxford
Matteo Bastiani: University of Oxford
Richard Rogers: John Radcliffe Hospital
Saad Jbabdi: University of Oxford
Eugene Duff: University of Oxford
Rebeccah Slater: University of Oxford

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-14

Abstract: Abstract Understanding the neurophysiology underlying neonatal responses to noxious stimulation is central to improving early life pain management. In this neonatal multimodal MRI study, we use resting-state and diffusion MRI to investigate inter-individual variability in noxious-stimulus evoked brain activity. We observe that cerebral haemodynamic responses to experimental noxious stimulation can be predicted from separately acquired resting-state brain activity (n = 18). Applying this prediction model to independent Developing Human Connectome Project data (n = 215), we identify negative associations between predicted noxious-stimulus evoked responses and white matter mean diffusivity. These associations are subsequently confirmed in the original noxious stimulation paradigm dataset, validating the prediction model. Here, we observe that noxious-stimulus evoked brain activity in healthy neonates is coupled to resting-state activity and white matter microstructure, that neural features can be used to predict responses to noxious stimulation, and that the dHCP dataset could be utilised for future exploratory research of early life pain system neurophysiology.

Date: 2021
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22960-0

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