Correlating early motor skills to white matter abnormalities in preterm infants using diffusion tensor imaging.

The article reports a study which evaluates the benefits of diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) in detecting injury to specific white matter (WM) involved with sensorimotor processing in preterm infants. The study aimes to provide sensitive measures for latent or nascent motor skills for preterm infants at risk for WM injury. It reveals that fractional anisotropy (FA) can predict outcomes of early motor skills performance and can identify infants with silent WM injury.