Altered functional neuroanatomy of response inhibition in adolescent males who were born very preterm

Event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was used to investigate the hypothesis that males who were born very preterm may show differences in relative strength of blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) signals in selective brain areas during performance of a simple response inhibition task compared with term-born controls. Participants were eight males (mean gestational age at birth 28wks, [SD 2]; mean age at testing 16y, [SD 1] and 14 controls matched for sex, age (mean age 17y, [SD 1]), and IQ. A 'go-no-go' task was used to assess response selection and motor response inhibition in response to a visual stimulus. When the 'no-go' condition was contrasted with an attentional control condition, preterm participants showed reduced BOLD signal response bilaterally in the cerebellum, right caudate nucleus, and thalamus, and prefrontal areas including left inferior prefrontal and left anterior cingulate gyri. They also showed increased response mainly in temporal regions. These results suggest that despite good task performance, individuals who were born very preterm exhibit different BOLD signal responses in selective brain areas compared with controls which may underline the use of alternative strategies when challenged with motor response inhibition processing.