NEUBORN: The Neurodevelopmental Evolution framework Using BiOmechanical RemodelliNg
This work addresses the challenge of modeling individual brain development for early identification of neurodevelopmental disorders, representing an incremental improvement over existing normative frameworks.
The authors tackled the problem of capturing fine-scale anatomical details in individual cortical development by introducing a biomechanically constrained framework for learning growth trajectories from longitudinal MRI data, which improved biological plausibility with fewer negative Jacobians compared to state-of-the-art baselines.
Understanding individual cortical development is essential for identifying deviations linked to neurodevelopmental disorders. However, current normative modelling frameworks struggle to capture fine-scale anatomical details due to their reliance on modelling data within a population-average reference space. Here, we present a novel framework for learning individual growth trajectories from biomechanically constrained, longitudinal, diffeomorphic image registration, implemented via a hierarchical network architecture. Trained on neonatal MRI data from the Developing Human Connectome Project, the method improves the biological plausibility of warps, generating growth trajectories that better follow population-level trends while generating smoother warps, with fewer negative Jacobians, relative to state-of-the-art baselines. The resulting subject-specific deformations provide interpretable, biologically grounded mappings of development. This framework opens new possibilities for predictive modeling of brain maturation and early identification of malformations of cortical development.