ArticleCommunications biology2021
Infants' cortex undergoes microstructural growth coupled with myelination during development.
Article in Communications biology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 39 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
39 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 56 citations in OpenAlex.
- A Systematic Review over the Effect of Early Infant Diet on Neurodevelopment: Insights from Neuroimaging.Nutrients · 2024Pooled it
- Postnatal maturation of putamen microstructure accompanies topographic white matter connectivity and altered circuits in autism.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Biophysical modeling of anatomically realistic prenatal cortical folding development.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Congenital blindness reduces myelination in human visual cortex.Science advances · 2026Article
- Dorsal visual stream development improves symmetry of receptive field coverage and spatial attention.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Cortical and white matter myelination proceed in concert during early infancy.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Structuro-Functional Differentiation and Coupling of Gyri and Sulci in the Neonatal Cortex.Human brain mapping · 2026Article
- Explicitly nonlinear fMRI networks reveal hidden trajectories of infant brain development.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Dual-axis myelination covariance drives the functional connectivity emergence during infancy.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Tracing infant sleep neurophysiology longitudinally from 3 to 6 months: EEG insights into brain development.Npj biological timing and sleep · 2026Article
- Prenatal and early postnatal periods differentially shape the maturation of human cortical microstructure and myelin.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- The Emergence of Topography and Hemispheric Lateralization in High-Level Vision.Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006) · 2026Review
- Longitudinal changes in infant non-nutritive sucking across the first year of life.Early human development · 2026Article
- Hierarchical microstructural tissue growth of the gray and white matter of human visual cortex during the first year of life.Brain structure & function · 2026Article
- How do infant brains fold? Sulcal deepening is linked to development of sulcal span, thickness, curvature, and microstructure.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Biophysical modeling of anatomically realistic prenatal cortical folding development.Research square · 2026Article
- Early life shifts in cortical inhibitory-excitatory balance underlies sensitive periods and skill development.Frontiers in cellular neuroscience · 2026Article
- Phenomenal consciousness: its scope and limits.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Cortical and white matter T1w/T2w development proceed in concert during early infancy.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Longitudinal trajectories of brain development from infancy to school age and their relationship with literacy development.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
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Authors and funding
10 authors at 5 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Development of cortical tissue during infancy is critical for the emergence of typical brain functions in cortex. However, how cortical microstructure develops during infancy remains unknown. We measured the longitudinal development of cortex from birth to six months of age using multimodal quantitative imaging of cortical microstructure. Here we show that infants' cortex undergoes profound microstructural tissue growth during the first six months of human life. Comparison of postnatal to prenatal transcriptomic gene expression data demonstrates that myelination and synaptic processes are dominant contributors to this postnatal microstructural tissue growth. Using visual cortex as a model system, we find hierarchical microstructural growth: higher-level visual areas have less mature tissue at birth than earlier visual areas but grow at faster rates. This overturns the prominent view that visual areas that are most mature at birth develop fastest. Together, in vivo, longitudinal, and quantitative measurements, which we validated with ex vivo transcriptomic data, shed light on the rate, sequence, and biological mechanisms of developing cortical systems during early infancy. Importantly, our findings propose a hypothesis that cortical myelination is a key factor in cortical development during early infancy, which has important implications for diagnosis of neurodevelopmental disorders and delays in infants.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.