Babies can hear and respond to sounds, including language, before birth. In fact, research shows that babies learn to recognize words in the womb. Now, an advanced MRI technique called diffusion tensor imaging is providing a fine-tuned view of when different brain areas mature, including the areas that process sound. And the findings suggest that babies born prematurely may have disruptions in auditory brain development and in speech.

Investigators at Boston Children’s Hospital, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and University College London analyzed advanced MRI brain images from 90 preterm infants and 15 infants born at full term (40 weeks). Fifty-six of the preterm infants were imaged at multiple time points. As shown above, the team focused on a particular fold in the brain called Heschl’s gyrus (HG). This area contains the primary auditory cortex, the first part of the auditory cortex to receive sound signals, and the non-primary auditory cortex, which plays a higher-level role in processing those stimuli.

As seen in these sample images, the primary cortex has largely matured at 28 weeks’ postmenstrual age (PMA), whereas the non-primary auditory cortex has had a surge in development between 28 and 40 weeks’ PMA. Both regions appeared underdeveloped in the premature infants as compared with the infants born at term.

The study further found that disturbed maturation of the non-primary cortex was associated with poorer expressive language ability at age 2. The team suggests that this area may be especially vulnerable to disruption in a premature birth because it is undergoing such rapid change.

The study was published in eNeuro, an open-access journal from the Society for Neuroscience. Jeffrey Neil, MD, PhD, of Boston Children’s Department of Neurology, was senior author on the paper. First author Brian Monson, PhD, is now at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Read more in the university’s press release.