Characterization of Fetal Cortical Development Using Spectral Analysis of Gyrification (SPANGY)

SPANGY applied to 635 fetal brain MRI scans (20–38 weeks gestational age) quantifies temporally ordered cortical folding, showing low-frequency deep fissures are progressively superseded by higher-frequency folds.

• Why it matters: Prenatal cortical folding is critical for later mental health and cognition, yet its precise, quantitative characterization has been missing for detecting neurodevelopmental deviations early.
• What they did: The study first applied SPANGY to a large multi-centric dataset, using normative modeling (GAMLSS) and statistical harmonization (ComBat-GAM) to build age-specific reference trajectories for multi-scale spectral frequency bands.
• The result: The resulting normative curves provide an objective statistical reference for second-half pregnancy gyrification, enabling earlier identification of deviations from healthy fetal brain development.