Brain Volumes and Abnormalities in Adults Born Preterm at Very Low Birth Weight.

<bold>Objectives: </bold>To assess radiographic brain abnormalities and investigate volumetric differences in adults born preterm at very low birth weight (<1500 g), using siblings as controls.<bold>Study Design: </bold>We recruited 79 adult same-sex sibling pairs with one born preterm at very low birth weight and the sibling at term. We acquired 3-T brain magnetic resonance imaging from 78 preterm participants and 72 siblings. A neuroradiologist, masked to participants' prematurity status, reviewed the images for parenchymal and structural abnormalities, and FreeSurfer software 6.0 was used to conduct volumetric analyses. Data were analyzed by linear mixed models.<bold>Results: </bold>We found more structural abnormalities in very low birth weight participants than in siblings (37% vs 13%). The most common finding was periventricular leukomalacia, present in 15% of very low birth weight participants and in 3% of siblings. The very low birth weight group had smaller absolute brain volumes (-0.4 SD) and, after adjusting for estimated intracranial volume, less gray matter (-0.2 SD), larger ventricles (1.5 SD), smaller thalami (-0.6 SD), caudate nuclei (-0.4 SD), right hippocampus (-0.4 SD), and left pallidum (-0.3 SD). We saw no volume differences in total white matter (-0.04 SD; 95% CI, -0.13 to 0.09).<bold>Conclusions: </bold>Preterm very low birth weight adults had a higher prevalence of brain abnormalities than their term-born siblings. They also had smaller absolute brain volumes, less gray but not white matter, and smaller volumes in several gray matter structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]