Oct 20, 2015 10:55 AM EDT By Rashmi Kalia, UniversityHerald Reporter

A new study has revealed that premature babies have weaker brain connections, leading to cognitive problems later in life, redorbit reports.

The study was presented this week at Neuroscience 2015, the annual scientific meeting of the Society for Neuroscience.

The new study reveals weak connections in the brains of premature babies that are associated with attention, communication, and the processing of emotions. It could lead to early interventions for cognitive issues associated with premature birth. 

"The brain is particularly 'plastic' very early in life and potentially could be modified by early intervention," study author Dr. Cynthia Rogers, a child psychiatrist at Washington University of St. Louis, said in a statement.

"We usually can't begin interventions until after symptoms develop, but what we're trying to do is develop objective measures of brain development in preemies that can indicate whether a child is likely to have later problems so that we can then intervene with extra support and therapy early on to try to improve outcomes."

In the new study, researchers evaluated 58 babies born at full term with 76 infants born a minimum of 10 weeks early. Full-term infants were scanned on their second or third day after birth, while the premature babies were scanned within a few days of their due date.

The study revealed that brain networks for attention, communication, and emotion were weaker in premature infants.

"We found significant differences in the white matter tracts and abnormalities in brain circuits in the infants born early, compared with those of infants born at full term," Rogers said. 

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