Atypical Structural Connectivity and Integrity in Children with Hydrocephalus and its Relation to Executive Function
Abstract
Infants with hydrocephalus are a high-risk group for adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes, including impairments in executive functions such as goal-directed behaviour, focusing, and shifting attention. The current pilot study aimed to profile white matter and executive dysfunction in school-aged children with ventriculoperitoneal (VP) shunted hydrocephalus and age-matched healthy controls using the Behaviour Rating Inventory for Executive Functions and diffusion tensor imaging. To assess the degree of similarity between patient structural networks and controls, probabilistic streamlines between striatal and cortical regions and their respective diffusivity metrics were assessed. For a number of patients with hydrocephalus, white matter in the striatal-executive network showed significant deviation from a healthy control profile. Patients with higher global executive dysfunction also had lower correlations of striatal-executive fractional anisotropy with the healthy control profile. Future studies with larger samples can explore factors such as etiology that are likely to contribute to aberrant white matter and executive dysfunction.