How infant brains fold: Sulcal deepening is linked to development of sulcal span, thickness, curvature, and microstructure
Posted on: 14 July 2025
Preprint posted on 21 April 2025
Shaping the postnatal brain - how the grooves of our brain continue to develop after birth.
Selected by Jeny Jose, Jawdat Sandakly
Categories: developmental biology, neuroscience
In this preprint, the authors examine the development of the grooves of our brains (= sulci) after birth. To do so, they looked at MRI scans from infants during their first year.
In short, they found that sulci follow a sulcus-specific and hierarchical growth pattern after birth: early-forming sulci are deeper at birth but grow more slowly. Sulcal development involves coordinated changes in shape, thickness, and tissue structure, suggesting that multiple interacting factors—not a single mechanism—drive postnatal brain folding.
These findings provide new insight into the complex, region-specific processes driving early brain development and have implications for understanding the origins of neurodevelopmental disorders.
As part of a SciArt workshop led by Sonhita Chakraborty (ArtbySonhita), the following two graphical abstracts were produced to capture the essence of this fascinating preprint:
Created by Jeny Jose
Created by Jawdat Sandakly
doi: https://doi.org/10.1242/prelights.40799
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