Associations between mathematical skills and white matter microstructure in children born preterm

Abstract

Preterm birth affects both white matter microstructure and mathematical skills, but little is known about the association between these outcomes. Using a hypothesis-driven ROI approach, we studied five white matter tracts previously associated with mathematical cognition: the corpus callosum, corticospinal tract (CST), inferior longitudinal fasciculus (ILF), inferior frontal occipital fasciculus (IFOF), and superior longitudinal fasciculus. Forty-eight children born before 33 weeks of gestation and twenty-seven children born full-term received a diffusion weighted MRI scan and completed a standardized mathematics test at age 5 and again at age 7. Term status significantly moderated the effect of fractional anisotropy (FA) of the right and left CST, left ILF, and left IFOF when predicting mathematical skills at 5 and 7 years of age. Post-hoc analyses of these effects revealed a positive association of FA in these tracts with mathematical skills in the full-term group, while this association was absent or negative in the preterm group. These differences may reflect adaptive processes following preterm birth and the recruitment of alternative pathways during mathematical problem-solving.