Fetuses with single ventricle congenital heart disease manifest impairment of regional brain growth

Objective Anomalous neurological development associated with congenital heart disease (CHD) has been reported as early as third trimester of fetal development. While several studies have characterized variations in CHD neurodevelopmental outcomes in early childhood, these reports are often confounded by postnatal factors such as surgical outcome. Recent studies have focused on the comparing neurological variations between fetuses with CHD and normal controls. In this work, we present a comparison of in utero variations in brain development between fetuses with different types of CHD, by analyzing them under categories of single ventricle versus biventricular cardiac anatomy. Methods Using recent advances in fetal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), we quantify the volumetric trajectories of various brain tissues (such as cortical plate, developing white matter, cerebrospinal fluid [CSF], and cerebellum). Results Our study is the first to differentiate between intraventricular and extra-axial CSF thereby allowing us to better identify variations in brain composition of the fetuses. Conclusions Overall, our findings show that while total brain volume is similar between fetuses with single and biventricular anatomy, they exhibit statistically significant disparity in brain composition.