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Functional Imaging of the Prenatal Brain

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Fetal Development

Abstract

In utero magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has significantly increased our knowledge on early fetal brain development. Especially the possibility to expand standard clinical applications of imaging structure to functional imaging has increased the opportunities but also introduced major challenges in the field regarding motion artifacts, group analysis, and generating structural templates. This chapter gives an overview on fetal functional imaging from stimulation to resting-state studies and discusses critical challenges in data analysis. Fetal functional MRI is a powerful approach investigating brain development in utero and has the potential of generating biomarkers for developmental prognosis in the future.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Psychology, University of Graz, Universitätsplatz 2, Graz, 8010, Austria

    Veronika Schöpf DI

  2. Computational Imaging Research Lab (CIR), Department of Biomedical Imaging and Image-Guided Therapy, Medical University of Vienna, Währinger Gürtel 18-20, Vienna, 1090, Austria

    Georg Langs DI & Andras Jakab PhD

Authors
  1. Veronika Schöpf DI
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  2. Georg Langs DI
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  3. Andras Jakab PhD
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Correspondence to Veronika Schöpf DI .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Dept. Psychology Science Laboratories, University of Durham, Durham, United Kingdom

    Nadja Reissland

  2. Queen’s University, School of Nursing Queen’s University, KINGSTON, Ontario, Canada

    Barbara S. Kisilevsky

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Schöpf, V., Langs, G., Jakab, A. (2016). Functional Imaging of the Prenatal Brain. In: Reissland, N., Kisilevsky, B. (eds) Fetal Development. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-22023-9_21

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