Date of Award

1-1-2018

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Medical Doctor (MD)

Department

Medicine

First Advisor

Laura R. Ment

Abstract

Premature birth is a major public health concern of increasing scope, with far-reaching consequences for children and families. Survival has increased with little improvement in the high incidence of lifelong neurodevelopmental disabilities. Critical among the difficulties resulting in poor academic performance for preterm children are deficits in both visual memory and fine motor skills, but the relationship between these two functions and the neural systems subserving them is relatively unexplored in this population. We tested the hypothesis that deficits in fine motor ability mediate deficits in visual memory as previous research suggests that motor ability is key to the development of visual-spatial processing. Magnetic resonance diffusion tensor imaging (MRI-DTI) was used to assess white matter coherence in 40 preterm adolescents (PT) with no neonatal brain injury compared to 40 term controls to document possible impaired white matter tract development as well as target neuro-correlates of the cognitive findings, particularly in the cerebellum, a developmentally vulnerable region in preterm neonates.

The Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure Test, the Beery visual-motor integration (VMI), the Grooved Pegboard Test, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children and Wide Range Achievement Test were collected for a PT cohort with no brain injury (N=190) and term controls (N=92) at age 16 years. PT performed more poorly than terms on all measures of fine motor, visual memory, and arithmetic achievement (all p

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