Identifying Regional Changes in Macro- and Microstructure in Neonates with Hypoxic Ischaemic Encephalopathy

Motivation: Hypoxic Ischaemic Encephalopathy (HIE) often, but not always, results in abnormal MRI appearance, which evolves over the recovery period, emphasising the need for appropriate controls when performing quantitative comparison. Goal(s): Generate normative models over postmenstrual age and time since birth for structural MRI and identify abnormal regional tissue in HIE neonates. Approach: 462 healthy neonates were used to generate normative models of volumetric and diffusion MRI metrics across the brain, using Gaussian Process Regression. HIE neonates with identical scanning and preprocessing were compared. Results: Individual comparison of HIE neonates to normative models demonstrated a diversity of deviations, with group-level analysis suggesting common trends. Impact: Our quantitative comparison of MRI metrics highlights a range of radiological findings in HIE and allows inference of single subject abnormalities against a normative range appropriate for the age/recovery time. Combination with clinical data will allow associations with neurodevelopmental outcome.