Regional Brain Volume Reference Ranges for 55 Very Preterm Infants

55 very preterm infants without brain injury form the cohort for this cross-sectional study establishing normative brain volume data. The dataset provides reference volumes and sex-stratified centiles for 26 brain structures, derived from 3-Tesla MRI scans processed with the Infant Free Surfer tool. Median gestational age was 29.4 weeks, with scans acquired on the same scanner and confirmed by expert consensus for quality.

Use Cases

• Establishing normative baselines for brain development based on the provided reference volumes and centiles.
• Investigating sex differences in regional brain volumes based on the reported significant findings for the putamen and hippocampus.
• Analyzing associations between gestational age and brain structure size based on the reported weak or absent correlations.
• Supporting studies on early intervention by detecting deviations from typical development based on the established reference ranges.

Strengths

• Cohort is well-defined with 55 infants, 24 male and 31 female, all having normal neurodevelopmental outcomes up to 2 years.
• Data is derived from high-quality, expert-confirmed 3-Tesla MRI scans processed with a fully automated segmentation tool (Infant Free Surfer).
• Provides sex-stratified centile ranges (3rd-97th) for 26 regional brain structures.

Limitations

• Row count and column-level documentation are unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data scale is limited to 40.5 KB, suggesting a small, summary-level dataset rather than raw volumetric data.
• Geographic and institutional origins of the data are unspecified, which may affect generalizability.

Provenance

Source

figshare admin karger

Collection Method

Cross-sectional study using 3-Tesla MRI scans processed with Infant Free Surfer automated segmentation.

Time Range

Study period not specified; data reflects term-equivalent age scans.

Freshness

Last updated 2026-04-25 05:55:30; freshness should be verified.

Geography

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