The prevalence of congenital heart disease points to the need for a better understanding of how it influences neurodevelopment. New in JNeurosci, Jung-Hoon Kim and Catherine Limperopoulos, from Children's National Hospital, led a study examining brain network disruptions that may be linked to congenital heart disease.
Compared to publicly accessible brain imaging data from healthy newborns, babies with heart failure had atypical networks associated with sensory perception, movement, and social behavior. After corrective cardiovascular surgery, these brain networks were improved. Says Limperopoulos, "What's happening is that before these babies go into open heart surgery, there are differences in how brain regions connect and communicate with each other. These differences may result from altered oxygen and blood flow to the brain. Postoperatively, we start to notice that the way the brain is wired more closely resembles what healthy babies' brain networks look like."
Speaking on the implications of this work, says Kim, "Using fMRI, we can identify brain networks that are vulnerable to altered oxygen and blood flow from congenital heart disease, which could help guide interventions to improve care for children." Adds Limperopoulos, "Conventional analytical tools face challenges in detecting altered networks that might explain why these children experience neurodevelopmental disability as they age. Leveraging more advanced analytical techniques opens doors to new opportunities: Can we identify subsets of infants who show lack of restoration after surgery? This could help with developing targeted and tailored interventions early on. From a medical perspective, these data also suggest that cardiac surgery improves brain health! Leveraging brain-based biomarkers to identify the optimal timing for performing surgery could improve outcomes."
