Three dimensional development and asymmetry of the corpus callosum in the 0-18 age group: A retrospective magnetic resonance imaging study

Abstract

Most of the corpus callosum (CC) developmental studies are concerned with its two-dimensional structure. Linear and area measurements do not directly assess the CC size but estimate the overall structure from the cross-sectional image. This study investigated age- and sex-related changes in volumetric development and asymmetry of CC from birth to 18. For this retrospective study, we selected 696 patients (329 [47.27%] females) with both 3D-T1-weighted sequence and normal radiological anatomy from patients 0-18 years of age who had brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) between 2012 and 2020. The genu, body, splenium, and total volume of CC were calculated using MRICloud. The measurement results of 23 age groups were analyzed with SPSS (ver.28). Total CC volume was 18740.76 +/- 4314.06 mm(3) between 0 and 18 years of age, and its ratio to total brain volume (TBV) was 1.70% +/- 0.23%. We observed that the total CC volume has six developmental periods 0 years, 1, 2-4, 5-9, 10-16, and 17-18 years. Genu and body grew in five developmental periods, while splenium in seven. There was intermittent sexual dimorphism in the CC volume in the first 4 years of life (p < 0.05). However, sex factor was insignificant in CC ratio to TBV. Total CC was right lateralized on average 1.81% (ranging -0.59% to 4.52%). Genu was 8.70% lateralized to the right, the body was 2.99% to the left, and the splenium was 1.41% to the right. The three-dimensional development of CC agreed with the two-dimensional developmental data of CC except for some differences.