Introduction Perivascular space (PVS) has recently gained attention as a neurological indicator associated with early brain development in infants. However, there is still limited research on the relationship between PVS volume and neurodevelopmental outcome of infants. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the association between PVS volume of neonates at term-equivalent age and their neurodevelopmental outcome at 24 months.

Methods This study retrospectively reviewed neonates born between 2019 and 2022 at a single institution who underwent brain MRI at term-equivalent age and had neurodevelopmental assessment at 24 months using Bayley-III. Neonates with structural abnormalities on brain MRI due to clinical risk factors such as congenital anomalies or infections were excluded. PVS volume of the brain MRI were automatically extracted and relationship between the volume and neurodevelopmental scores on three domains (cognitive, language, and motor) were assessed using multiple linear regression. We conducted Wilcoxon rank-sum tests to compare PVS volumes between infants with normal and delayed development group, defined as a composite score below 85 in each outcome domain.

Results A total of 14 neonates were included (median gestational age, 246 [243–254] days; birth weight, 3 [2– 3] kg). Result of multiple linear regression analysis showed significant negative associations between PVS volume and cognitive (β = -0.70, P = 0.042), language (β = -0.69, P = 0.01), and motor development (β = -0.71, P = 0.017) after adjusting for corrected gestational age. Infants with developmental delays demonstrated significantly higher median PVS volumes compared to those with normal development for language (38.4 vs 18.5 mm3, P = 0.02) and motor domains (51.2 vs 26.6 mm3, P = 0.02).

Conclusion Increased neonatal brain PVS volume was associated with lower developmental scores in cognitive, language, and motor domains at 24 months. Additionally, greater PVS volume independently predicted language developmental delay, suggesting that neonatal PVS volume may serve as an independent predictor of neurodevelopmental outcomes.

The authors have declared no competing interest.

This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF-2021R1A2C1007831)

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This retrospective study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of Eunpyeong St. Marys Hospital (No. PC24RISI0104), which waived the requirement for informed consent.

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