Spatiotemporal developmental pattern of brain myelination from 0 to 6 years old

Motivation: Myelination in the human brain extends from late pregnancy to the end of adolescence. Yet, its developmental pattern during this period is not fully understand. Goal(s): We use the BCP dataset to investigate early brain myelination between 0-6 years old. Approach: We utilized T1-/T2-weighted intensity, a surrogate marker for myelin. Results: We identified five spatial patterns with distinct developmental trajectories and investigated the biological implications of myelination on developmental diseases, finding that the myelin content of corpus callosum had a significant fully mediated effect on ASD-related indicators. Furthermore, we found an alternation of myelination development affected by preterm birth in a separate cohort. Impact: We investigated myelination patterns in infants and toddlers by T1w/T2w based on the BCP dataset and identified five distinct regional developmental trajectories. Using a mediation analysis, we found an intrinsic association between myelination and ASD-related restricted repetitive behaviors.