Authors
König, S., Tuiskula, A., Metsäranta, M., Stjerna, S., Saure, E., Haataja, L., Vanhatalo, Tokariev, S. &., & A.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nicl.2025.103933Abstract
Highlights Perinatal asphyxia may have a long-lasting effect on brain functions and cortical network activity. • Our findings suggest that perinatal asphyxia, even without clinical encephalopathy, reflects on cortical activity at two years of age. • Long-term effects of perinatal asphyxia on the cortical activity networks appear to co-vary with the severity of neonatal encephalopathy. Abstract Perinatal asphyxia can lead to clinical hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE) associated with high morbidity and mortality, but less is known about long-lasting effects by perinatal asphyxia alone (PA). Here, we investigate how PA with vs without clinical HIE affects cortical activity networks at two years of age. Electroencephalographic (EEG) recordings were acquired during sleep from three cohorts of children (PA only (n = 10), PA with mild to moderate HIE (n = 8), and healthy controls (n = 37)), and we assessed the group differences in local cortical function and cortico-cortical networks. Compared to the healthy controls, both PA and HIE linked to reduced frequency-specific amplitudes. In the two-year-old children with PA, the amplitude-related networks were stronger at low frequencies and weaker at higher frequencies, however two-year-olds with HIE showed decreased connectivity at all frequencies. Likewise, phase-related networks in the two-year-old children with PA were stronger at lower frequencies and weaker at higher frequencies. Local phase-amplitude coupling was affected by PA or HIE in only a few cortical regions. Our findings suggest that PA, even without clinical HIE, may be associated with long-lasting changes to both local cortical activity and the large-scale cortical networks, which could potentially affect normal brain functions. Keywords Electroencephalography Neonate Hypoxic-ischemic Encephalopathy Perinatal Asphyxia Connectivity