MY CONTENT

Cerebral palsy has been predicted by analysis of spontaneous movements in the infant termed “General Movement Assessment.” The authors evaluated the utility of General Movement Assessment in predicting adverse cognitive, language, and motor outcomes in very preterm infants and attempted to identify brain imaging markers associated with both adverse outcomes and aberrant general movements in 47 preterm infants using MRI volumetric analysis and DTI. Nine infants had aberrant general movements and were more likely to have adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes, compared with infants with normal movements. In infants with aberrant movements, Tract-Based Spatial Statistics analysis identified significantly lower fractional anisotropy in widespread WM tracts. They conclude that aberrant general movements at 10–15 weeks' postterm are associated with adverse neurodevelopmental outcomes and specific white matter microstructure abnormalities for cognitive, language, and motor delays.